


Your Wild Girl (Cherry Bomb)

by BlackHogwartsWrites (vashtishacklebolt)



Series: Don't Let Me Be Gone [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Auror Training, Character Death, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Mystery, Summer Fic, Teen Sleuths, bi!Dorcas, black!Dorcas, dorlene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2020-06-27 13:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19791691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vashtishacklebolt/pseuds/BlackHogwartsWrites
Summary: Dorcas Shacklebolt joins her friends (and her enemies) in London for Slughorn's summer work placement program at the Ministry. Will she solve the mystery of her missing teacher? Sequel to I Don't Care At All.





	1. The Symbol

The sun slanted dappled through the full green branches outside Dorcas's window. They made fairy lights of their own on the wood-panel walls, the crochet throw blankets, the dancing, smiling, and laughing photos stuck to the wall with Spell-O tape and sticking charms.

Dorcas looked into her suitcase one more time: Work robes her mother helped pick out, jars of spices and herbs her father prepared, and his special, magically enhanced, perfect-edge-control, follicle-nourishing, curl-polishing braid butter. "Better than Sleak-Eezy," he said.

With her wand she flicked a handful of long black braids away from her face. At the bottom of the valise, underneath robes and underthings, jars and parchment, new quills and fresh ink, was a small, folded parchment. She took it out once more, and unfolded it for the hundredth time that summer to look upon the mysterious symbol: a circle inside a square, inside a triangle, inside a circle, letterpressed in the center of the page. She still didn't have any idea what it meant, but she hoped to find a clue where she was going. She folded it down very small and tucked it into a bottom corner and covered it with her clothes once again, and closed her suitcase. She nodded once as she snapped it shut, satisfied with her packing. She picked up her things and prepared to leave the house, to go beyond the gated boundary and apparate to London.

* * *

  
Dorcas landed with a pop in a Barbican alley. She walked out into the narrow street, looking both ways before crossing. Her destination was just across from her, 41, Cloth Fair. She ran up to the door and rang the old bell. The door opened of its own accord, and the first thing Dorcas noticed was a painting of an ancient person on the opposite wall of the foyer-- man or woman, she couldn't tell. Perhaps neither. They wore ancient, dusty blue robes, and their long shaggy gray hair hung in their face. Dorcas could see only a sliver of one round clear brown eye.

Standing in the foyer, she could hear voices in the drawing room. Stepping over the threshold, she found Professor Slughorn surrounded by soon-to-be-seventh-year students.

Lily Evans, in what Dorcas assumed was muggle _business-casual,_ her dark red hair cropped to her shoulders, was sitting in an enormous armchair by the fire. Alfred Dean in a polo shirt and jeans leaned against the back of her chair, his long brown arm thrown across the top. He smiled in Dorcas's direction, his nostrils flaring. Beside him, Marlene sat on a chintz ottoman, her blonde hair just brushing the collar of the denim jacket she'd thrown over her robes. She jumped up when she saw Dorcas and made her way across the room to throw her arms around her. Dorcas squeezed her back, catching a whiff of her scent of mint and warmth, and over her shoulder saw faces loved, reviled, and utterly unfamiliar. Tall, broad-shouldered, devastatingly-handsome-but-for-the-pinched-look-on-his-face Cato Parkinson by the fireplace mantle, hands in his pockets. By his side, his haughty-faced girlfriend Ligeia Selwyn, her raven hair parted in the middle and pulled back by a black ribbon. She smoothed her fine robes down over her knees. Potter stood speaking with Dorcas's cousin Amin, and a wizard she'd seen before in the Slytherin common room and in her classes, but whom she did not speak to often. Meadowes, she thought, might be his name.

Slugorn clapped his hands. "Now we can begin!" He said jovially. "Welcome to Harrandon House, and to Hogwarts's new work placement summer program, spearheaded by yours truly. Only the best have been accepted to work with my friends in the ministry. Everyone in this room will go far in life, mark me!

"Now, some business: while here at Harrandon House, you will live by its rules. Curfew is at 10 o'clock, no illicit substances _including_ firewhisky, pipe tobacco or other smokable plant matter, no magic in the corridors, no muggles, no gin. The blanket ban on Zonko's products at Hogwarts applies here as well!

Now, there is floo powder on the mantle pieces of every fireplace in the house, however your network access is limited to your homes, the ministry, and the Leaky Cauldron. Your rooms are assigned, and _please_ don't switch, the house will know. There are office supplies in a closet on this floor, beside the drawing room.

"That is all! Please respect Harrandon House, and Harrandon House will respect you! Your work placements are representative of real responsibility in the Wizarding World and you are expected, by your coworkers and me, your advisory professor, to behave yourselves accordingly!"

Slughorn left with a slamming of the front door, rattling the great old bell. The students looked at one another in the loud silence, as if to say, are we alone?

James smirked and raised his wand. "Accio Comet!" He shouted. Nothing happened. He continued to smirk as he sauntered up the stairs. Amin and Cassius laughed faintly, Lily hid her amused smile behind her hand, and Cato and Ligeia rolled their eyes.

I'm hungry, said Alfred, checking his non-existent watch pointedly. "Doesn't Slughorn know it's still breakf--" And on the surfaces of various spindly legged side tables and coffee tables appeared a half dozen silver trays of scones, croissants, bacon and eggs, rashers, butter dishes, jars of fruit preserves, bowls of sliced grapefruit and orange, pitchers of pumpkin juice and silver pots of tea and coffee, sugar bowls and creamers full of hot, frothing milk.

"So it's like Hogwarts then," said Alfred, rubbing his hands together and stacked a small plate that had suddenly appeared, and filled a tea cup Dorcas hadn't noticed before. She reached for breakfast too, despite having already eaten once that morning. She never could pass up elevenses if it presented itself.

* * *

  
Dorcas found she'd be rooming with Lily. She hid her slight disappointment (she'd hoped to bunk with Marlene after all) behind genuine gladness at sharing a room with a good friend.

They were on the second floor. Their room, down the hall from Marlene and Ligeia, was spare but friendly, with warmly floral patterned bedding and drapes, their walls were painted a butter yellow and hung with framed images of botanical drawings that seemed to sway with a gentle breeze, as if the stems were still rooted in a sunny field. Their two beds, separated by two bedside tables set with oil lamps and candle sticks, sat across from two bare desks with empty drawers, smelling strongly of cedar and old parchment. Their huge window looked out on the narrow, sunny Cloth Fair road, the stone arches of the cathedral across the street, the spires of St. Sepulchre’s and St. Bride’s, the Tower of London, the dome of St. Paul’s and around the bend in the river, the long, old halls of Westminster.

Dorcas set about unpacking her valise. She spotted the folded parchment in the bottom corner of her valise and slipped it in her pocket. Best to have it on her at all times, she thought, as Lily went to throw open the window, letting in the sound of muggle London below: the sputtering of motors, people chatting, the deep rumble of the underground. Lily looked back at Dorcas with a silly, child-like grin on her face-- she plainly loved the city.

Dorcas put down her robes and went over to sit with Lily on the window-seat cushion, and they stuck their heads out, looking down at the activities below.

"It must look very familiar to you," said Dorcas. "Muggle London."

Lily chuckled. "To be honest, London, to me, is just as magical as Hogwarts or Diagon Alley."

"Are you excited for tomorrow," asked Dorcas.

"Oh yes," said Lily, sitting up proudly. "A summer at the Daily Prophet, I couldn’t be happier. And you?"

"In the Auror department, with my brother, absolutely," said Dorcas confidently. She fingered the folded parchment in her pocket.

They were pulled from their conversation by the sound of crashing glass upstairs.

"What was that?" Dorcas murmured in a tense voice. She exchanged a look with Lily, whose hand went straight to the wand in her pants pocket. There came a shout from above.

"Sorry! Forgot to open the window! _Reparo_!" Just as Dorcas and Lily had stood up, ready to run upstairs and find out what had happened, at a loss to explain what was going on, James appeared in the doorway, sitting sidesaddle on his broom as it hovered in mid-air, grinning fully. He continued to grin as he floated away, and Dorcas and Lily burst into riotous laughter.

* * *

At noon, Dorcas crossed the ancient, creaking hardwood floors to the room Marlene shared with Ligeia. She found the door ajar, and Marlene sitting at her desk, setting out her parchment and quills while Ligeia shook out lusciously patterned, finely woven robes and hung them in the wardrobe.

Their room was decidedly darker: their linens and drapes were printed with dark green leaves, giving them a heavy look. Their furniture was made of darker wood, and their walls were painted a cool gray and hung with landscapes that rustled with wind and rain. It gave Dorcas an unsettled feeling.

Marlene looked up and smiled as she got up from her desk. Dorcas reached for her soft little hand, just as she noticed Ligeia glance over with a sneer of disgust. Dorcas squeezed Marlene's hand.

"Thought we'd go for a walk," she said. Marlene nodded enthusiastically and they stepped out of the house together into the sun now shining full-tilt into Cloth Fair.

Dorcas wrapped her arm around her girlfriend's waist and relaxed. She was still quite new to muggle London, and pointed out things that caught her eye as they wandered in the direction of the Thames, where the sky opened out over the water.

They chuckled at the muggle contraptions: chairs with handles that rumbled through the streets, like brooms with wheels, tall red boxes containing machines that people talked into.

"They've invented so much," said Marlene, looking up at the scaffolds of a construction site, where men in white helmets used all kinds of complicated, noisy metal tools to put together a tall building made of glass. "It’s magical."  
  


Dorcas and Marlene sat down on a bench under a Plane tree and looked out at the boats and barges zipping or plodding down the Thames. They received odd looks from passersby, which Dorcas attributed to their odd dress, their pureblood habit of wearing casual day-robes. Dorcas watched Marlene watch the boats with wide-open eyes full of wonder and laughed. She kissed her cheek quickly, before Marlene could turn to her, grinning. They were kissing now, and it felt good. It felt like home. Dorcas cuddled her face into Marlene's neck, under her light blonde hair, into the soft, warm smell behind her ear, and breathed in.

* * *

  
  
Back at the House, Dorcas went down the old rickety stairs to dinner with butterflies in her stomach. It was a feeling that reminded her of the night before going to Hogwarts to start a new year. The Auror Office would be a new adventure, and she was nervous, but excited.

At the dinner table, she sat down between Marlene and Lily to a full feast, just like at Hogwarts. Professor Slughorn was there, chatting away about the wizard he knew in the Wizengamot, with whom he'd been friends since school days, and the witch he'd met in the International Magical Relations Office, who regularly brings him bottles of Madeira wine.

Dorcas slid a slice of roast onto her plate, and was spooning vegetables on top as Slughorn turned to the nearest student, Amin.

"Mr. Shafiq, you'll be working in International Magical Relations with Mrs. Angelbert, what do you think?"

"Sounds like a fine opportunity to start my own collection of Madeira wine, sir," Amin said with a smile.

"Oho!" Laughed Professor Slughorn, grinning widely. "And Mr. Parkinson, Mr. Potter, are you ready to join the Wizengamot? I understand your uncle is a member, Mr. Parkinson, and your grandfather was, Mr. Potter."

The boys nodded. Cato gathered up all his haughtiness into his face, looking about ready to brag about his uncle, when James said, "Yes, I plan to introduce some legislation to outlaw Potions homework, sir."

Cato, looking deflated, looked daggers at James, who was trying hard not to laugh as Slughorn chuckled.

"I wouldn't mind retiring early myself," joked Slughorn, and he turned to Dorcas.

"You'll be joining family as well, as I understand it, Ms. Shacklebolt."

Dorcas tried to swallow her mouthful of potatoes and carrots fast enough to respond, when Ligeia interrupted while looking down at her plate, and continuing to carefully carve her roast with her knife and fork.

"Clearly not everyone can inherit grace and dignity the way they inherit pure blood."

Cato sniggered and Cassius frowned as the dining room went quiet. Slughorn cleared his throat and smiled at Lily and Alfred, and asked them what they looked forward to most at the Daily Prophet. Dorcas focused on Ligeia, who did not look up from her plate, but whose lips were ever so slightly upturned at the corners.

"Ms. Selwyn," said Slughorn. "What are you looking forward to this summer in the minister's office?"

"I believe it will be an opportunity to learn firsthand how to handle difficult situations with strength and poise," smiled Ligeia. Dorcas, whose father often complained about the minister's leadership, scoffed.

"Yeah, if you want to know how to fumble law enforcement and public relations disasters. I suppose it helps if your daddy's in the pocket of blood supremacists." Dorcas saw Cassius out of the corner of her eye as he snorted into the back of his fist.

Ligeia finally met Dorcas's eye. Her gaze was withering, but Dorcas only stuck out her chin in a gesture of defiance.

"Now, now, ladies, let's not discuss politics at the dinner table then, hm?" said Slughorn with a note of nervousness in his voice.

Alfred looked up, affronted, and Lily seemed about to say something in response, when James and Marlene audibly objected.

"Our professor's missing under suspicious circumstances, probably for standing up to blood supremacists and death eaters," said Marlene quickly and furiously. "Frankly i don't think we can afford to not discuss politics. Professor," she added slowly, as if to siphon off a bit of the pressure of barely suppressed rage. Slughorn stuttered. Marlene threw her napkin on the table and stood up as Lily and Alfred did the same, followed shortly by Dorcas and James.

In the drawing room, Dorcas joined Marlene, Alfred, Lily and James, all of whom had flopped down on the armchairs and couch by the fire.

"Thanks for standing up for us, Mar," said Lily. She had tucked her legs up and was hugging her knees in an armchair.

Marlene shrugged. "Least I could do," she said from the floor, where she'd sat down on the rug, leaning back on her palms.

"No one's heard anything about Asante, right?" said James, his arm draped across the back of the couch. Alfred, who sat on the other side of the couch shook his head. 

"Nothing in the paper," confirmed Dorcas. "Nothing from my brother."

"But you'll check it out," said James, with an unashamedly worried tone. "You'll check on it while you’re there."

Dorcas gave him a reassuring smile. "Of course I will. I plan to make good use of my time," she said, digging the folded letterpressed parchment out from her pocket. She presented it to James, who unfolded it, and nodded seriously. 

"Poor professor Asante. I do hope she's alright, wherever she is," said Lily. "You'll tell me if you need anything from the Daily Prophet, won't you? Information, sources? And Marlene will be able to look up loads for you in the Archives."

Dorcas bent her head solemnly, as if making a promise. She looked up to catch Lily exchange a brief, warm look with James before Alfred sighed.

"I wish we hadn't left without desser--"

Just then trays of cakes, tarts, treacles and biscuits appeared. 

"Eerie," Alfred mumbled. "It's like its listening."

But no one in the room heard him over the sounds of teenagers tucking into sweets.


	2. Trinity

_ Asante's robes fell back to reveal brown wrists as she raised her wand. Dorcas stood beside her, studying the movement of Asante's wrists, listening to the spells she wove, watching the cogs of the printing press begin to turn. _

_ Dorcas admired her teacher's spellwork-- intricate, intentional, careful. More than that, she admired her teacher. Her curls tucked back from her kind, patient face, her confident posture. Dorcas thought she was infinitely cool. _

_ Asante finished the spell, and Dorcas let her eyes wander the studio as the printing press began to churn out printed parchment. Her eyes were drawn to the desk pushed to one side; it was scattered with paper covered in designs and sketches. There was one personal item: a frame containing a photograph of a man holding a toddler. Both smiled and laughed. Dorcas heard Asante walk up next to her. Heard her sigh. _

_ "My dad," she said, smiling. Dorcas smiled back. _

_ "He looks like you," said Dorcas. Same dark eyes, same wide nose with nostrils that flared when they smiled. _

_ "Yes, I hope I inherited something from him. I don't know much about him except that he died when I was very young." _

_ Dorcas looked closely at the framed photograph as Asante's father continued to bounce the little baby girl on his hip, beaming proudly at the photographer. Behind him, a large building loomed in the distance. Seemingly made of clay, or cloud, there were many disparate levels, but it was also just one story, and there were many windows and there were no windows and the sun reflected off the smooth surface like crystal. _

_ “It's Uagadou,” said Asante. “It's a beautiful place. It changes constantly. That is how it protects itself.” _

_ Dorcas looked up at her teacher, who smiled indulgently.  _

_ “I taught there for a few years after graduating Hogwarts. That's how I learned that my father taught there too.” _

_ “My father is an auror,” said Dorcas, encouraged to share by her teacher's openness. Asante smiled. “I want to be just like him. He's my hero, has been my whole childhood.” _

_ “I believe you'll do just that,” said Asante.  _

_ Dorcas couldn't help but feel puffed up with confidence. _

_ “Was your father your hero when you were growing up?” _

_ “I do not remember.” _

_ “You don't remember if he was your hero?” asked Dorcas, puzzled. _

_ “I do not remember growing up.” _

_ Asante's face darkened and Dorcas stuttered an apology. Asante turned away and began to gather parchment and folders and books. _

_ "I'm sorry, I just remembered I have a meeting. A meeting with-- um--" _

_ And Asante left the studio, and the door ajar, and Dorcas standing in the middle of the room, next to the chugging press, alone.  _

Dorcas shook herself mentally, coming back to the present. She'd returned to the studio in her mind over a hundred times, trying to recall a single detail she'd missed. It had been an odd encounter when it happened, and it was odd now, in her memory.

She shook her head once more, pulling on her new robes and flicking her braids away from her face. She grabbed a handful of floo powder from the pot on the mantelpiece and threw it in the smoldering coals, which burst into green flame. She stepped into it, face-first, and said "Ministry of Magic!" 

Dorcas followed the familiar path through the busy atrium to the lifts, pressing the button for level two, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Many times as a child she had followed her father's tall, broad frame as he strode down the gleaming halls to his cubicle, where she would sit beside him coloring parchment. It was a long time ago, but she still knew the way.

At the door to the offices, an Auror in her black and gray standard-issue robes stood at attention. She was a pretty young woman with mouse-brown hair gathered in a ponytail. She had a wide smile as she spotted Dorcas. 

"Dorcas Shacklebolt?" the Auror asked, extending her hand. 

"Yeah, how'd you know?" asked Dorcas, shaking the Auror's hand.

The Auror scrunched her nose. "Well, you're as tall as Kingsley and you look just like him. Of course, with your baby-face, I was sure you were one of our two Hogwarts work placements. I'm Auror Cadet Longbottom."

"I've been to the office many times with my father and brother, but I don't remember you," said Dorcas, looking around discreetly for her fellow student worker.

"Just levelled up out of the Academy. But I know your brother well, he helped train me," said Longbottom with a wide grin. "Oh, there's Meadowes now." 

Cassius ran up in his odd mix of wizard robes thrown over a muggle-style sweater and jeans. "Got lost at the lifts," he huffed. 

Longbottom beamed. "Well then, ready for a tour?"

Longbottom led the way through a long corridor and they emerged into a warren of cubicles in an absolute flurry of activity. Owls swooped, their wings brushing the ceiling, aurors leaned over cubicle walls to hand off files or chat amicably. It was somehow always exciting when Dorcas entered Auror headquarters. It never got boring.

"Welcome to the Salt Mine," said Longbottom. "This is headquarters, where the Aurors take care of administrative tasks. You'll have cubicles here. Think of it as your home base."

Dorcas and Cassius followed Longbottom through the honeycomb of cubicles as she introduced them to various Aurors: 

"Emmeline Vance, Junior Auror," said Longbottom, gesturing to the tall witch with a dark cropped haircut and a septum piercing. She beamed and exclaimed, “Hello Dorcas, how are you!”

Longbottom flagged down Kingsley and introduced him. "He's your brother?" Cassius muttered to Dorcas, who nodded nonchalantly. "Wicked," he said.

"This is Captain Alastair Moody," said Longbottom, beaming at a grim, imposing wizard. His long thick hair was tied back in a ponytail, revealing his face, latticed by white scars and punctuated by a thick no-nonsense mustache. He shook Cassius's hand, then Dorcas's, before remarking, in a gravelly voice: “I remember you when you were wee.” He winked at Dorcas, who smiled nervously.

Longbottom waved at someone across the room. “And that is Auror Cadet Longbottom,” she said, pointing out a beaming, sandy-haired man. He was big, broad, strong. Would he even need a wand in the field? 

“You're both Longbottom?” Cassius asked, confused.

“He's my husband,” shrugged Longbottom.

She moved her hand in the direction of a pair tall oak doors, which were closed. 

“Crouch's office. He’s Department Head. And down at the end of the corridor is our Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office. Oh, hello Mr. Weasley! What are you up to?”

“Longbottom! I was just on my way down to see Kinney in Patrol,” smiled the tall, thin, ginger-haired wizard, sporting glasses, ginger facial hair, and colorful robes. As he went past, Dorcas noted that his robes were colorful because they were discreetly patched with bright material.

“He's been here a few years now, shown a lot of promise, if only his division head would take notice,” said Longbottom shrugging.

“So! We'll have you sort files to start, while I find out what the other Aurors need. We'll try to have you dip your toes into a bunch of different areas, get a feel for the office.”

“Will we be going into the field?” asked Dorcas.

“Certainly not, you're only students,” laughed Longbottom, leading them to a bare cubicle big enough for two.

“Will we be visiting the training facilities?” asked Cassius.

“Maybe. I'll have to ask my commanding officer.” Longbottom looked doubtful.

“And what are you working on currently?

"I'm afraid that's a bit classified," said Longbottom, looking mildly panicked now at the onslaught of questions with no answers. Another Auror walked in with stacks of parchment floating in front of her.

"Good luck," he scoffed as he left. Longbottom followed him out, waving encouragingly at Cassius and Dorcas, who were left alone. They sat down, each pulling a stack of parchment toward them.

"So you're in Slytherin too, are you," said Cassius as he began to sort his stack.

"Yes, I am," muttered Dorcas as she pulled the first parchment off the stack and began reading. 

"We're in a bunch of the same classes," said Cassius. He had neatly sectioned out different stacks without even glancing at the files.

"Hmm," says Dorcas, inspecting her files closely. They were arrest reports, with whole sections blacked out. 

"But I guess you've got your own friends in other houses," Cassius sighed.

"Yep," says Dorcas absent-mindedly. 

Cassius, giving up on conversation, turned from her to his files, and wordlessly continued working.

Dorcas studied closely the handwritten notes on the files she was supposed to be sorting. Without the censored information, the rest of the text was incomprehensible. Random words like "lemon-scented," "blue," "arrived," and "violent" were peppered throughout one report. Dorcas gave up reading, but continued to let the words sieve through her as she sorted.

Dorcas was still sorting when Cassius went to the canteen for lunch. With him gone, her surroundings came into focus. The overhead lights flickering as owls sailed past. The sound of aurors conversing ebbed and flowed over the cubicle walls. Two to her left were discussing the food in the canteen.

"It's mushy."

"But have you tried it with a cup of lemon tea? I'll bring some in for you-- no, I  _ insist-- _ "

"Whoever heard of pumpkin  _ pie _ , anyway? Disgusting."

And to Dorcas's right, a much quieter conversation was happening. She stilled herself to listen.

"...just had an owl from Uagadou. The Headmaster is cooperating."

"That's good. After that I'll need you to round up all the Aurors who were on the Asante detail twenty-two years ago and have them sign releases for their memories to be entered in the evidence pensieve."

"Yes, sir."

Dorcas stood and shuffled some files together, holding them to her chest as she crossed the room. There were two voices at least, one of them the gravelly bass of Captain Moody.

"Have you managed to get ahold of Dumbledore yet?" Moody asked.

"No, sir. Our owls keep coming back with sealed letters."

Dorcas could swear that Moody’s eyes rolled audibly as she stealthily set about sharpening a quill next to the supply closet.

"Keep trying."

Dorcas surrepticiously watched Moody come out from behind the cubicle wall. He eyed her briefly as he swept past. Dorcas shuffled her files and went back to her cubicle and saw Cassius had returned from the canteen, and was chatting with Kingsley.

"Oh, sure, there's several branches of practical magic you'd be studying at the Academy. Neuromancy, wandlore, camouflage, Trace-magic. I mean, you learn some of the theories in your final N.E.W.T. year but…"

Kingsley trailed off as he saw Dorcas approach. He shook his head. 

"What are you up to little monster?"

Dorcas stuck out her tongue and sat down at her desk.

* * *

As Aurors all around them closed their suitcases or cinched their sacks, put on their hats and left for the day, Cassius put the finishing touches on his neat stacks of arrest reports. "I'm going back to the House," he said. "Are you coming?"

"I'll be along," said Dorcas. As the last of the Aurors filed out the door for the evening, Dorcas placed the last file on the last stack and stood up in her cubicle, looking over the wall.

She was the last witch. No light burned in the late-afternoon office; the blinds had been drawn. A hush had fallen over everything, as the owls had retired to their perches to nibble on treats and sleep. She looked towards the door, knowing the right thing for her to do would be to join the evening rush hour lines to floo or apparate out of the ministry. Instead she made a beeline through the cubicles.

She hadn’t managed to figure out exactly which one Moody had been standing in, having the conversation she’d overheard during lunch. She knew it was somewhere to the left, and around the corner, by the window…

A very small, very odd black and white picture, no larger than the palm of her hand, caught her eye and she knew she’d found it. The picture was of Asante, looking young and bright-cheeked, blinking shyly, and smiling. It was the only photograph on the cubicle wall. That’s why it had caught her eye. Dorcas moved closer to inspect it. It wasn’t the only document on the wall, there was also a file pinned next to it, listing known information: a birth year of 1945 in Kumasi, Ghana, 32 years of age, and a note: no information prior to 1955. No family. Dorcas frowned. What about her father? What had happened to her mother?

Dorcas stepped back, at a bit of a loss. What had happened between 1945 and 1955 for Asante to have no recorded information, no family?

As Dorcas mulled over speculations--  _ perhaps they were waiting for more information to arrive via an owl from Dumbledore, perhaps she’d lost her parents in a tragic carpet accident _ \-- she gathered her things and left the office. Her mind was so occupied by what she’d seen in the office that she almost ran into the witch coming around the corner from the courtroom stairs.

Ligeia sniffed haughtily at Dorcas, who had stopped short just in time to avoid knocking into her. Behind Ligeia trailed a gaggle of robed legislators chatting to one another. 

"Still sticking your nose where you don't belong," Ligeia hissed out of the corner of her mouth. 

"At least I don't have to pay to fit in," Dorcas retorted as she passed her in the hall.

Dorcas turned the corner and huffed, annoyed at having her train of thought interrupted, and boarded the next lift, still lost in thought. She was ready to meander out at the atrium level when it stopped at Level Eight.

A witch with a tower of papers entered and turned, and Dorcas recognized her when she turned and revealed a crop of dark red hair.

“Lily?”

The witch jumped, and looked at Dorcas out of the corner of her eye, from behind the stack of newspapers.

“Hello Dorcas, how was your first day?”

“Uneventful,” said Dorcas. “I thought the Daily Prophet offices were in Diagon Alley?”

“They are, I was just dropping something off at the Atheneum-- the Archives. You sound disappointed about the Auror Office.”

“It's great. They're a little cagey.”

"Well yeah,” shrugged Lily. “They're a bit like the equivalent of MI5 or something. Or the FBI.”

“What are you on about,” said Dorcas. She lowered her voice. “They were talking about Asante.”

Dorcas explained what she found as the lift opened on the Level for the Archives. Lily shifted the parchments in her arms. “No family, what does that mean precisely?”

“Not sure,” said Dorcas, following Lily out of the lifts absentmindedly. “I know she had one at one point. I’ve seen a picture of her father. Question is, what happened to them? I wish there was a way to look at Prophets in other countries.”

“There is,” huffed Lily from behind her papers. “At the Atheneum. Marlene is there, she can help us! Let's go.”

They entered through a pair of tall heavy doors made of carved dark wood that opened into a long arched hall that disappeared into darkness. There were floor-to-ceiling flat files, filing cabinets, document boxes, scrolls-- books, pamphlets, and newspapers from all over the world. There were stone tablets, a few towering steles to the right, a section for knotted rope and shell necklaces to the left. Dorcas spotted Marlene behind the reference desk, putting her things in her bag.

“Hey babe,” she said into Dorcas’s hair as she gave her a kiss on the temple. Dorcas felt a knot she hadn’t known she'd had at the bottom of her chest as it loosened. She smiled up at her girlfriend, who smiled back, before nodding to Lily. “You missed the head archivist, Crowley, she just left for the day,” she said. Lily sighed and laid down her stack of papers on the desk. 

Dorcas placed both hands squarely on Marlene’s hips.

“I’m in need of newspapers. Preferably from Ghana, I think. And Uagadou.”

Marlene nodded. “Yeah, I think that’ll be aisle four. I’ll show you how to search by city, come on.”

Marlene grabbed Dorcas’s hand and lead her down the hall. Lily followed, and Marlene smiled warmly in her direction.

“How was the Daily Prophet?”

“Aces-- of course, I’ve lots of studying to do. Going to need N.E.W.T.s in Potions, Charms and Arithmancy, obviously…”

Marlene stopped them at the top of an aisle that extended into darkness. She raised her hands, her wand aloft. Then, moving her arms in graceful arcs, several flat files lit up, glowing a pale blue. Dorcas entered the aisle, gazing up at the glowing files. Marlene moved her wand in a graceful arc again and they flew down settling themselves in Dorcas's arms.

At a table nestled among the stacks, Dorcas opened the boxes and shuffled through the papers as Marlene and Lily looked over her shoulder.

“Here,” said Lily, pointing to a name. “Asante, a professor at Uagadou married a woman named Trinity Oppenheimer of London, a researcher in Alchemical Sciences.”

“But that's in 1940. It must be her parents!” Dorcas exclaimed. She skimmed the short profile in the Uagadou newsletter.

“He'd just started teaching,” Dorcas murmured as she scanned the paper.

“Look here he is again,” said Marlene, pulling open a newspaper from Kumasi.

“It's a muggle paper,” Lily gasped softly.

Dorcas read the headline out loud. " 'Ali Asante: Ghanaian Nationalist Organizer Calls A Meeting.' That was in 1945.”

She flipped through more papers from 1946, 1947, 1948, and found him again.

“Oh, Merlin,” she said. 

It was an obituary. It read,  _ Anti-government agitator Ali Asante shot dead in Kumasi on Sunday, December 12, 1948 as British colonial forces locked down the city during a period of unrest _ .

“Look,” said Lily, pointing further down the article. “He left behind a wife named Trinity, and a three year old daughter, May.”

“Blimey, she was upset,” said Marlene. " 'The British government are murderers.' Doesn't stop her from going back to London with May, though, look. Says right there."

"Mad with grief," Lily nodded. 

Dorcas looked up from the papers then. “Can we do a general search for Trinity Asante in London after 1948?”

Marlene raised her wand and flicked it, but nothing happened.

“I don't understand,” said Dorcas sadly.

“Poor professor Asante,” Lily breathed. “I had no idea.”

Dorcas began ticking off on her fingers. “So his wife was distraught. Brought May back to England. Problem is, there's a blank from 1948 to 1955. And Asante said she didn't remember her childhood.”

“Gotta find Trinity,” said Lily. “But how?”

Just then, the lights went out overhead. Dorcas looked up in alarm.

“I think the Atheneum is closed for the day,” said Marlene. Lily gathered her things and shuffled toward the light beyond the tall double doors. Marlene lit her want, and swept it in a semi-circle, and the newspapers they’d been looking at gathered themselves into their boxes and flew back to their places on the shelf.

Dorcas paused there next to Marlene, with only one wand for light in the forgiving darkness. Dorcas breathed in the warm scent of Marlene’s hair as she bent close, making her heart quicken. A short, slow kiss in the dark, before they too stepped toward the light. 


	3. Germ Free Adolescents

Dorcas's arm was thrown over Marlene's shoulders. Marlene's hand rested on Dorcas's thigh. Their faces were lit by the pale daylight that penetrated the grimy windows, and the green and purple streams of light that flashed on and off brightly and snaked along the wall behind them. In front of the window, they came together to form a steaming cauldron. 

They were sitting in a booth at the Leaky Cauldron, surrounded by their friends. Their first week had passed in a blur: full of names they were going to forget and replace with nicknames like “The Long Man,” and “Mild Ned,” instructions on how to navigate the filing system that they were going to have to ask for again on Monday, the first terrifying time they had to write a query letter, and the unshakeable feeling they did something very wrong, despite having done everything right. It was all over. It was the weekend, and they were unwinding.

Sirius strode over with a tray full of butterbeers and set it down on the table, wiping his hands on his apron and winking at Remus, who gave him a tired smile. James reached for two glasses, handing one to Lily. Marlene played with Dorcas's braids as she smiled up at Sirius.

"Won't you join us, Black?"

Sirius sighed. "I will when my shift is over." He shook his head. "Tom works me like an absolute dog." He turned and headed back to the bar.

Lily raised her glass. "Hear, hear," she said, looking towards Sirius's retreating back. "To the bloody working class." And she took a swig of her butterbeer. She shot a look at James. "Down with the bourgeoisie," she smirked. 

James looked at her with mock indignation. "Sirius is more bloody _borgey_ than I am!" He sipped ruefully from his glass, muttering, "Bloody _Fronch_ words I don't understand."

"Hey," called Black from behind the bar. "Mind your xenophobia, Potter, I've got French relatives."

Potter threw him a rude hand gesture. Lily rolled her eyes, smiling. Marlene chuckled. She leaned across Dorcas to grab a glass of butterbeer, meeting Cassius's eyes as she did so.

"Meadowes," she said with a grin. Dorcas gave her shoulders a little squeeze. She loved when her girlfriend was in a gregarious mood, it was adorable.

"Meadowes, you're in my girl's house but I don't know anything about you."

"What do you want to know?" said Meadowes, putting down his drink.

"Well, do you like music? Where're you from? Do you play quidditch or wizard's chess?"

He blew air out through his nose.

"Well, I grew up in Devon, erm, yeah I like music and I prefer wizard's chess. It's my brother that's the quidditch player."

James leaned forward. 

"Yeah, Junius, right? Slytherin team Captain, plays Chaser, sometimes Keeper. Takes Slytherin to the Cup finals almost every year since he's started playing, formidable, absolutely formidable."

Cassius reddened, and smiled sheepishly. "Yeah that's him," he said, sipping from his glass.

"You're twins," James stated, swilling his butterbeer glass.

Cassius nodded.

"And his girlfriend, what's her name? Amelia?"

"Cath," Cassius corrected.

"She's a fit bird."

Cassius choked slightly on his butterbeer.

"You've not got someone fit to neck, have you, Cash?"

Cassius choked a little more. Lily looked at James. "Are you quite finished?" she asked him.

"Wha'?" murmured James.

"What about you," said Meadowes, clearing his throat and looking at Marlene, who shrugged.

"Let's see, I grew up outside Edinburgh, my dad's a muggle, my mum's a well-known Herbology expert, and I have three older sisters," she said, and she ticked off her fingers, "Fredericka, Willa, and Liesel."

"What do they do?"

"Well, Liesel's the oldest, she's twenty-three and the youngest witch on the Wizengamot. Willa's an auror and Freddie's a healer-in-training."

"What's your mum's name, maybe I've come across her in my revision," said Remus.

"Her name's Greta, but she publishes under her maiden name, Greta Reinhart."

"Ah, yes," said Remus, spilling butterbeer on his knee in his excitement. " _Principles of Herbological Classification_. I particularly recall the passage where she goes into detail about advances in the treatment of symptoms caused by--"

Sirius came back at that moment, planting a long, sticky kiss on Remus's lips. He'd removed his apron and was wearing a muggle-style leather jacket over his robes. James flicked an errant butterbeer cork at them.

"Oi," he said. "Have some respect for us singletons what've got nobody to snog."

Lily snorted with laughter. Sirius reached over and squeezed Lily's knee.

"Fancy a cigarette, love?"

As Lily dug in her purse, James leaned back and crossed his arms.

"I miss Pete."

Remus scooted over on the bench so that Lily and Sirius could sit together and smoke.

"I got a letter from him a week ago," said Remus. "Said he's bored to tears helping out at his uncle's shop in Hogsmeade. But he might visit in a few weeks."

"Do you mean, in three weeks' time, to be precise," said James, wiggling his eyebrows. Remus gave him a soft smack on the shoulder.

"Yes, you lousy prat, that's exactly what I mean.”

“We'll floo to my house that night," said James quietly. Remus nodded once.

James glanced over at Lily who took a drag off her cigarette, and ashed it into a ceramic bowl in the middle of the table. She looked over at James, catching his eye. She winked and he grinned. 

Remus threw him a significant look but James looked pointedly away.

Sirius drew on his cigarette and met Marlene's gaze.

"How's the summer job, Black?" Marlene said, winding her fingers through Dorcas's.

Sirius let the cigarette smoke unfurl from his nostrils. "The wages are beastly but I make decent tips. And I get to visit Remus everyday at Flourish and Blott's." He daintily held his cigarette between two fingers as he touched his nose tenderly to Remus's, who smiled shyly.

"I get loads of free books working there," said Remus. 

"Free books and free-- secret-- booze," whispered Sirius, whipping out a little silver flask from his vest pocket. He tossed it to Marlene who took a covert draught before offering it to Dorcas. She took a swig and noticed the engraved crest-- _T_ _oujours Pur_ , encircled by elaborate curlicues-- before she passed it to James and Lily. It made its way back around to Sirius, who took a last sip before tucking it away.

"One of the few things I nicked before I left Grimmauld Place, goblin-wrought silver and probably the only useful thing in that whole damned house."

Across the tavern, Alfred and Amin walked in. Amin waved at the group, and went over to the bar, while Alfred strode over to the booth.

"Hey gang, alright? Remus, you look like you got hit by a lorry."

"I am recovering from a particularly bad cold," Remus said with an air of tired dignity.

"Well, feel better, mate."

As Alfred spoke to the group, Dorcas and Marlene slid from the booth and made off giggling to the other side of the bar, where Dorcas pulled Marlene into a dark corner, and kissed her on the mouth. Dorcas squeezed her middle, her hand coming to rest comfortably on her hip as she took a long look at Marlene’s face: her light brown eyes, encircled by black lashes that flashed as she blinked. 

"Do you want to come to my room later tonight?" Marlene smiled. Dorcas grinned, then her smile fell.

"What about Ligeia? She hates me."

"She’ll visit Parkinson. We’ll have the room to ourselves for an hour or so."

Dorcas squeezed Marlene tighter and kissed her neck, breathing in the soft scent of her hair. Marlene spoke quietly into Dorcas’s braids.

"Wait until 10:30. When you come to the door, you can open it if there’s a sock on the knob." Marlene paused a moment before speaking again.

"You should give Ligeia a chance, you know. I think you’d like her once you got to know her."

Dorcas gently pulled away and looked into Marlene’s face.

"Are you… getting to know her?"

Marlene smiled, and said nothing. Dorcas felt her stomach drop a little, and she tried to push the feeling away. She smiled back. She could trust Marlene, she knew she could.

* * *

Later that night, Lily and Dorcas sat on their beds, illuminated by the gas lamps. Dorcas was folding her work-robes while Lily, dressed in cotton pajamas with woodland animals printed on them, was brushing her hair. They jumped at the sound of a rap on the window. Getting up, Lily opened the casement to James, hovering on his broom. Dorcas watched as James glanced at her, then grinned at Lily, who snorted with laughter.

"What do you think you're doing," Lily whispered.

"Got something for you," he whispered back. With one hand on his broom handle, he reached into his robe pocket and pulled out something small. Whatever it was made Lily smile. She said "Thank you," and James awkwardly saluted her, before breaking out into a really genuine smile. He looked a bit vulnerable and childish, so that Dorcas felt it necessary to give them privacy, and looked away. 

When she glanced up again, Lily was closing the window, as though there had been no one there. She must have already pocketed whatever it was. She gazed around distractedly, with a dozey half-smile on her lips.

Dorcas chuckled. "It's really obvious," she said then, causing Lily to wake from her reverie.

"What?"

"You're smiling."

Lily frowned, and flushed.

"No, I'm not."

"And you're blushing."

Lily made a sound of disapproval in her throat.

Dorcas snorted with laughter. Lily picked up her brush again and thoughtfully, absent-mindedly, continued brushing her hair, looking pretty in the soft gas light.

"When did you know with Marlene," she asked suddenly, quietly. 

Dorcas sighed. "Soon after we were paired in Potions. I got a feeling," she said. "At the bottom of my belly, and my brain just-- stopped working." She smiled to herself. "After a bit, after we got comfortable, I got a different feeling, like she wasn't going anywhere." Dorcas felt her stomach dip again unpleasantly, and she frowned momentarily. She swallowed, looking at the clock. 10:30. She stood up then, ignoring the surprise in Lily's face. 

"Going to the kitchen for a snack, be back soon."

Across the dark corridor, Dorcas turned the knob with the sock on it. The room was darker still. The bed to the right was empty, but the bed to the left had a dark shape sitting up. Marlene’s blonde hair caught the waning moonlight that spilled through the curtains. Dorcas went over and slid in between the covers. 

Their kisses were soft and slow at first, but as they quickened, and as they moved against each other, they got hungrier. Dorcas felt the heat in her face as Marlene’s shirt fell away. She kissed Marlene’s chest softly, nipping and passing small licks of her tongue over her. She felt a shiver as Marlene pushed away her shirt too, revealing her brown skin. Marlene’s eyes were wide, as if drinking her in. Dorcas knew she was making the same face, and she laughed softly. She bent down to kiss Marlene again and again, and they moved against each other, building heat and quick breaths. Dorcas gripped the metal bedstead as she came, feeling her body tremble all over with release, savoring each second that she could hear Marlene’s sounds of pleasure. She smiled unendingly as she held her love close, their breathing slowing steadily, the heat lingering, making them sleepy.

Dorcas stroked Marlene’s hair and sighed.

"I’m very happy," she said. 

"Me too," said Marlene.

"I could do this forever," said Dorcas.

Marlene burrowed her face deeper into Dorcas’s shoulder. Dorcas had a sudden vision of a cottage by the sea, sprigs of goldrenrod in a vase on a table in the kitchen, the sound of the sea crashing in the distance. Perhaps on a cliff in Cornwall. Dorcas gazed down at Marlene who had tucked herself under Dorcas's arm, her face softened with near-sleep.

"What are you thinking," asked Dorcas.

"Nothing," said Marlene slowly. "You?"

"Thinking about what I want after Hogwarts," said Dorcas. "A little house by the sea."

"I thought you wanted to be an auror," Marlene said into Dorcas's armpit.

"I do," said Dorcas. "But I want other things, too," yawned Dorcas, on the edge of sleep. Even as she was about to doze off she felt the blush rise to her cheeks. "I-- I want to marry you."

"Marry me," scoffed Marlene. Dorcas looked down into Marlene’s laughing face, feeling hurt. 

"I mean, once I’m an auror," said Dorcas, "I could die any day, it would be a risk every time I go out on missions. I want to live as much life as I can as soon as I can."

"Well, I’m sorry," says Marlene, sitting up in bed, quite awake and frowning. "But I don’t want to be married. I want to be free."

There was a chill suddenly in the room. Dorcas looked up, and saw the clock said 11:30. She sat up, bent to gather her pajamas from the floor, and stood.

"I better get back to my room. Gotta be up early tomorrow."


	4. The Evidence Locker

Dorcas awoke early the next morning and lay in bed in the gray light as she recalled the previous evening. Hungry kisses, and the disappointment of hopes dashed that had come after. And a dream about Captain Moody. She frowned as she got up and dressed. She struggled to remember, but drew a blank. _Must have been an anxiety dream_ , she reasoned, and the thought was driven from her mind when a tapping sound drew her attention to the window. Reaching over to open the casement, a paper plane zoomed inside and landed on Dorcas's sloppily made bed. Dorcas grabbed it, unfolded it and read.

_Come for a coffee with me and Ligeia after work today! X Marlene_

Dorcas felt an internal twinge of irritation. She tossed the note onto her bedside table, swept up her bag and stomped out of the room. She marched straight into the fireplace with a handle of Floo Powder, barking "Ministry of Magic!"

She arrived at the Auror Office to find Cassius standing and chatting with Longbottom. She was chuckling at something he'd said, the sound of her warm laughter further irritating Dorcas, who cleared her throat. Longbottom looked at her, slightly startled, but recovered fast with a bright grin.

“Shacklebolt! G'morning! C'mon, we're going to the reference library.”

Longbottom led them through the maze of cubicles, around a corner and into a midsize reading room. Though they were underground, tall arched windows shone shafts of golden sunlight onto a handful of long tables, where banker's lamps spilled pools of light, and the walls were lined with leatherbound tomes. The arched ceiling was painted with sunset gold and pink clouds.

“What's in the books,” asked Dorcas. She was still struggling to get over the morning’s grumpiness, but the promise of new knowledge was beginning to get the better of her mood.

Longbottom ticked off her fingers, "Magical law, mostly, but also curse theory, wand lore, trace magic, dark object catalogs, whatever's useful to the aurors really…"

Dorcas let her eyes linger on the spines. She was itching to page through them.

“So, today you'll be cross-referencing open cases with the laws on the books. You'll have to make sure the laws are still in effect, that the investigators' recommendations fall clearly within the parameters. It'll take all day.”

Dorcas let her eyes snap back to Longbottom, who was giving her a meaningful look. Dorcas smiled serenely and gave Longbottom her full attention.

Longbottom took out her wand and waved it over the table, where several stacks of thick, earmarked files began to rise up out of the wood. Some of them ended up being at least a foot tall. Longbottom motioned to the stacks.

“The sooner you get started, the better! I’ll be in my cubicle in the Salt Mine, if you need me.”

Longbottom turned on her heel and swept through the door, shutting it behind her. Cassius approached the table, and put a hand on a stack of files, even as Dorcas moved in the opposite direction, toward the books.

“Hey,” he said. “We better get started on these, like she said.”

Dorcas’s eye alighted on a title in front of her. _Guy’s Guide to Glamours and Disguises._ She pulled it off the shelf; it was small, the size of her hand, with a dusty blue-green cloth cover. She glanced back at Cassius, who had sat down at the table, pulled a file open in front of him, and was studying it under the light of the banker’s lamp. Dorcas quickly pocketed the book before joining him at the table.

They worked all day. Dorcas felt the weight of the night’s disappointments and their implications fade into the background as she studied the case files. Over the law books, Dorcas glanced at the top of Cassius’s head, bent determinedly over his papers. He made a good picture, she had to admit. She had to admire when someone worked hard and wanted to play fair. It reminded her of her father, of her brother, she thought as she bent her own head over the law books.

In the canteen, they continued discussing the case files over shepherd’s pie. Back in the reading room, the magically enchanted sun passed over the windows, and shadows played over the papers. It was very low, casting long golden shafts of light over the library’s leather spines when Dorcas and Cassius closed the last of the files. As they chatted and walked toward the lifts, Dorcas felt the weight of the book she’d nicked beat a steady rhythm against her hip.

Alone in her room, Dorcas took out the book from her pocket and leaned back against the metal bedframe.

 _Glamours, the simplest form of magical disguise, are easily overlooked. They require the least amount of magical power and skill, though, when power and skill are behind them, their efficacy can be on a par with Disillusionment charms and Polyjuice Potion. However, unlike the latter spells, a Glamour can be detected by several means: a)., By the multi-colored light emitted by the magical surface under specific low-light conditions, and b)., by the deployment of a counter-spell,_ vacuo, _which clears the glamour-magic from the face._

Dorcas had just turned the page when Lily stomped in, huffing and growling. Dorcas looked up. 

“Bloody boss, taking advantage of us--” Lily tossed her bag on her bed, shrugged off her robe, revealing her outfit of muggle button-down, suede vest and high-waisted slacks. 

“They’ve got us rushing this way and that--” she slammed the door of the wardrobe, opened and slammed shut her bedside table drawers.

“They don’t give us any kind of meaningful work. They don't respect Alfred _at all_ ,” snapped Lily, grabbing her bag and pulling it toward her. She pulled out a pack of muggle cigarettes, popped one in her mouth, and frowning indignantly, raised her lighter to light it. Dorcas shut her book and slid off the bed, went over to the windows and threw open the casement. Lily looked up at her blankly, a little irritably.

“It lingers,” said Dorcas shortly, before walking back over to her bed to sit down. Lily seemed to come back to herself.

“Yes of course,” she muttered, her cigarette bobbing up and down between her red lips. “I’ll go outside.” Lily stood, and went to the door. As she opened it, there came a shout. 

“POTTER!”

Dorcas, who had picked up her book, put it down again as the shouting continued.

“POTTER!” Lily went out into the hallway, leaning over the banister. Dorcas followed her out of the room and peered down the stairs to where Cato stood on the landing, shouting up into the bowels of the house.

"Potter if you don’t _stop riding your broom about indoors_!”

Potter himself swooped through the corridor and down the stairs, going entirely too fast. Cato let out a strangled cry and stomped away into the drawing room.

“I can't focus on these Foreign Wizard Office notes with you flying round, knocking down vases and--” came the shout from the front of the house. Lily and Dorcas rushed down the stairs, together with Amin and Alfred behind them. They entered the drawing room to see Ligeia laying a calming hand on his arm to soothe him, her own face like Grecian marble, framed by her thick dark hair. 

Lily rolled her eyes and walked to the front door, shutting it behind her to smoke her cigarette on the steps outside. James floated in from the kitchen on his broom, sniggering.

“Cato has never been in a Foreign Wizard Office meeting,” he jeered. “And I would know, because I’ve been in the Foreign Wizard Office meetings."

"That's enough, Potter," Ligeia snapped.

Cato’s face had turned a shade of tomato red, funny and fuming. He’d drawn his wand. Just briefly, Ligeia met Dorcas's eye. Suddenly, amidst the chaos, Dorcas recalled the dream from the night before. Even as Cato raised his wand, James laughed, and Ligeia struggled, Dorcas stormed through into the next room, grabbing a handful of floo powder and throwing it onto the smoldering coals in the fireplace where it burst into bright green flame. Thinking of Marlene laughing, holding hands with Ligeia over coffee, Dorcas hurried through the halls of the ministry and into the Auror office. The early evening light slanted through the windows as she went through a door behind the cubicles marked AURORS ONLY. And something that Moody had said on her first day, something she'd heard again in the dream she remembered _. “Round up all the Aurors who were on the Asante detail twenty-two years ago and have them sign releases for their memories to be entered into the evidence pensieve.”_

The room was utterly silent. Tall shelves lined the walls and ran the length of the room which extended into darkness. Items large and small, wrapped in white, labelled and numbered, crowded the shelves. Dorcas was looking for a cupboard. If she remembered correctly, it ought to be about waist high, made of black wood carved with ornate runes. She’d seen it only once as a little girl, while visiting her father at work. She remembered how he’d leaned down, how the light glinted off his bald brown head.

“And this, little monster, is the office pensieve. One of the most important tools in the evidence locker.”

Dorcas turned and there it was, just as she’d remembered it, if a bit smaller, because she was older and taller. Above it was another cupboard, lined with lime-green linoleum. She opened it. Hundreds of tiny vials were labeled and organized by date and status. Dorcas scanned quickly. When she came up with nothing, she scanned again and again, before realizing with a jolt that the case wasn’t open. The case was twenty-two years old.

Dorcas opened and closed six or seven cupboards before finding the right one. The label read, _Closed cases 1954 to 1956_. On the third shelf, a tiny glass vial, no larger than the smallest joint of her pinkie finger, in delicate handwriting: _Asante/Oppenheimer April 1955_. Dorcas picked it up, fingered it, feeling more sure about this tiny glass vial than anything else in the world at that moment. She uncorked it and poured its contents into the wide, shallow bowl inside the black wood cupboard. Lifting the bowl, she set it atop a table in the middle of the room, and watched the thin tendrils of silver memory swirl in the potion. They coalesced into a scene below her. A London street in broad daylight. Looking around at the silent room, Dorcas took a deep breath, climbed onto the table, and jumped with both feet into the pensieve.

* * *

Dorcas landed in the middle of a road in London, spring, 1955. Bug-eyed vehicles rumbled past her, passing through her as if she weren't there, as if she were made of smoke. She looked around. The sun shone brightly. Green and pink buds on the trees were starting to open. Men strode down the sidewalks, wearing fedoras and long overcoats. Women passed pushing strollers, leading children, or otherwise hurrying from one destination to the next. Not one of them looked up when a wizard rounded the corner up the street.

Dorcas watched him come round, his robes whipping in the spring breeze. His eyes darted, checking behind him and into every corner. As he came to an otherwise unremarkable tenement building door, he slowed his approach and subtly drew his wand. Dorcas walked across the street to watch him. Cars flew through her. 

She stopped in front of the door. Muggles walked right through her. As she did, she saw out of the corner of her eye another auror walk up the street. She knew that behind her, another two aurors were across the road.

The first auror raised his wand to the doorknob. She could hear the lock turning. As the door swung open, the auror entered nonchalantly, followed without hesitation by the second auror. Dorcas went in after them. She followed them all the way up the rotten stairs to a flat on the dirty, dingy second floor, where the first auror pointed his wand at the door. Nothing happened. He exchanged a look with the second auror.

"Oppenheimer!" he called. "Come out now!"

There was the sound of something tumbling to the floor on the other side of the door.

"We’ve had reports of illegal magic at this address! An Anti-Apparition jinx is in effect. Please come peacefully."

Dorcas threw her arms over her face as the door was blasted open in a shower of sparks and splintered wood, even though nothing would harm her, no smoke would enter her lungs, and no broken glass would scratch her skin. She caught sight of a derelict flat, a mattress on the floor, dirty dishes on the counter before a pale-faced woman with dishevelled dark brown hair emerged. She cast wide-open, wild eyes at the aurors who’d been thrown to the floor in the blast. Dorcas glanced down and realized that she was grasping the arm of a little girl. A ten-year-old little girl with brown skin and curly hair, who was crying.

“Mama!”

Dorcas hurried down the stairs after them, Trinity dragging the young May behind her. Already, Dorcas could see that the back-up aurors had arrived, wands drawn.

“STOP! You are under arrest for performing illegal magic on a child!”

Dorcas stopped in her tracks, breathless with shock. The aurors had drawn their wands, but would not release any spells, not as long as Trinity was holding onto May. Trinity knew this. Dorcas watched as she raised her wand and swung it through the air, unleashing a frighteningly powerful blast that knocked the two aurors off their feet. Trinity looked as if she were in the clear, and she picked up May who was sobbing with terror. She stepped over the rubble of the tenement building facade with the little girl on her hip, and proceeded to walk out into the street when three more aurors appeared. A few muggles had stopped to ogle the spectacle. 

Trinity held May as if using her as a shield. Dorcas’s heart was in her throat. Trinity threw spell after spell at the aurors who responded with shields and other defensive spells. Everything moved too fast for Dorcas to keep track of who fired what. An auror aimed a jinx at Trinity’s feet, causing her to stumble and drop May, who scrambled to her feet. Disoriented and frightened, the little girl sobbed as an auror rushed forward to pick her up. Dorcas could see the realization cross Trinity’s face quickly. As the dust settled, Trinity leapt over the rubble and pushed past the muggles as she ran down the street. It occurred to Dorcas as quickly as it must have occurred to the aurors, as quickly as it happened. One cast a badly-aimed _stupefy_ just as Trinity crossed the boundary of the anti-apparition jinx. She disappeared with a pop. In the confusion and disappointment, more wizards approached. One was tall, stately, with long auburn hair and a beard streaked silver. _Dumbledore_ , Dorcas realized. From across the street, Captain Moody and Dorcas’s own father approached, both of them looking youthful and strong. They greeted each other.

“Captain Shacklebolt, Senior Auror Moody,” said Dumbledore. _Of Course_ , thought Dorcas. This was twenty years ago, before Moody became Captain. Shacklebolt and Moody gave curt, grave nods as Dumbledore continued calmly. 

“Allow me to take May. I can ensure that she will have no memories of the pain her mother caused her, and that she will be protected at Hogwarts.”

Moody nodded his assent. Shacklebolt nodded, and said, “You’ll have to fill out some paperwork. We’ll need to keep track of her for our own records."

"Of course," said Dumbledore. The auror holding May stepped forward, setting her down on her feet. Dumbledore took her hand, and turned back.

"Captain, Senior Auror?"

Moody and Shacklebolt turned to face Dumbledore.

"This is not the last we’ve seen of her."

At that moment, as the aurors had begun to revive their colleagues and sift through the rubble for evidence, Dorcas felt a tug on her arm. She looked up into Cassius’s face. His thick brows were knitted with concern, his nose all scrunched. Dorcas sighed, and she allowed him to take her out of the memory.

They landed on the floor of the evidence locker in the dark.

“How did you know I was here,” said Dorcas.

“I didn’t,” said Cassius, straightening his clothes. “I saw the light flickering on the wall. What were you doing?”

Dorcas couldn’t help it, she glanced to the cupboard where she’d found the vial. “I-- needed to check something. What were you doing?”

It was Cassius’s turn to look shifty. “I wanted to check… something.”

They stood there awkwardly. Dorcas sighed. They were both where they weren’t supposed to be, doing what they weren’t supposed to do. She felt a comradely obligation to give up a little something.

Cassius gave her a look.

“I remembered something that Moody had mentioned,” said Dorcas. “About the Asante detail. There's a memory from years ago, here, in the evidence locker. Now I know what happened to her.”

“So you know why she disappeared?” Cassius asked hopefully.

“No, just… why she's supposed to have no family,” said Dorcas, hearing how flat her response fell. She felt like she’d disappointed him. She felt she ought to give him a little more. She explained about Asante's father, who'd been killed during the revolution in Ghana, and Asante's mother's grief, her duel with the aurors, her mistreatment of her daughter, and her disappearance.

Cassius nodded then looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“Something else is the matter,” he said. Dorcas balked.

“Nothing else is the matter,” she said defensively.

“Yes it is, tell me.” he said, matter-of-factly. Dorcas couldn’t believe she was hearing this. His impertinent tone. Or that she answered.

“I think my girlfriend fancies someone else.”

“Well that's bollocks, you're beautiful. She'd be a nutter to fancy anyone else.”

“Thanks,” said Dorcas, feeling a flush rise in her cheeks. She was suddenly very tired. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, why wouldn't I be?” Cassius said a little too quickly.

Dorcas studied Cassius for a moment. His dark blond hair was swept into his eyes. His angles were still rounded by boyish softness, even in the shadows.

“I told you why I was here, but you haven’t told me.”

Cassius shrugged. Dorcas huffed.

“Uh-uh. That’s not fair. Give it up, then.” Cassius chuckled, then gave a small, slightly sad smile. Dorcas felt herself open up a little.

“My dad left. And I want to know where he went.”

If it was possible, the quiet was even more awkward than before. In the kindest way she could, Dorcas nodded and, without a word, headed out the door, making sure that Cassius was behind her. They walked in silence to ride the lifts up to the atrium, where they flooed back to the house.

They could forget whatever awkwardness they’d shared in the evidence locker, because the house was in an uproar.

Broom twigs littered the floor as they stepped out of the fireplace. There was shouting and laughter as they climbed the stairs to their rooms. At the door to her room, Dorcas looked back once more at Cassius, who smiled at her, his eyes catching the light, before climbing further to his room above.

Dorcas opened her door to find Lily standing over James, who was seated on the bed, facing the window. They looked up as Dorcas walked in, and she saw the full extent of the day’s madness on James’s face: His eye was black and blue, and Lily had in her hand an open jar of blue Bruisewort ointment, and was applying it to his wound. Dorcas sighed and shook her head.

“Cato’s gone and chopped all the twigs off James’s broom,” Lily sighed. “So they had a row. There’s a lot of black eyes tonight.”

Dorcas threw her things on the floor and flopped down on her bed. She was so tired, she didn’t even realize she’d fallen asleep until she awoke the next morning in the gray light. Lily’s bed was empty.


	5. Dripping With Alchemy

Dorcas rolled over in bed. The sun was just beginning to rise over the London rooftops. She thought briefly of the next time she might be in a flat of her own, with work in the Auror office in a few hours. She felt it in her bones that this wouldn’t be one of the last times. The hope buoyed her for a moment.

Unbidden, the thought of Marlene’s soft golden hair came to mind. The warmth of her thin, pale hands. The crook and dimple of her smile. Dorcas began to deflate a bit as she turned over in bed. _Did she love me?_ The thought came before Dorcas could stop it. She desperately did not want to think about the answer to her own question. But she did want to finally have it out with Marlene. _What was happening, why, and were they going to make it through this?_ There was a sinking feeling in her stomach that she tried to ignore. She tried to put thoughts of Marlene aside. She had more questions after all, about her teacher. And only one person could answer them.

Dorcas swung her feet down over the side of the bed and stood, wrapping her robe around her. She shuffled quietly down the stairs and into the front room, where she grabbed a handful of floo from the pot on the mantle. She paused.

What would she ask him? What would he say? Was she afraid of the answer?

She took a deep breath and threw the floo powder over the smoldering embers in the fireplace. They leapt to green, crackling life. She knelt on the hearth, and stuck her head in.

“Shacklebolt Farm!” she said. There was nauseating, swirling color, then her own kitchen appeared. The rough wood table, the cabinets painted peacock blue, the early morning sun shining through the linen curtains. The kitchen was warm, while the rest of her body, in London, was chilled by an early morning draft.

“Mum? Dad?” she called. “Anyone home?”

She heard silence, then thumping and thudding on the stairs. Her father appeared suddenly, bent over, looking into the fireplace.

“Merlin! Dorcas?” He looked mildly bemused.

“Dad! Good morning.” Dorcas smiled up from the embers.

“What are you doing? Thought you were too busy in London to give us a call. And an early one at that.” He chuckled. His dark blue robes hung loosely, his eyes still puffy with sleep. A very thin stubble of silver hair glinted across his bald head. He absent-mindedly ran a hand over it.

“I had a question for you, dad,” said Dorcas, trying to maintain a nonchalant air.

“Oh?”

“I-- “ Dorcas paused. How much should she tell him? How much should she keep secret? 

“I’m worried about my teacher. My missing teacher--”

“Ah yes, Professor Asante. Nasty business,” Mr. Shacklebolt scowled down at the kitchen tiles, shook his head.

“Yes,” nodded Dorcas. “Well, I was doing some research, in the-- in the library at the auror office, and I know you were there when they got her mum, and--”

Dorcas paused for just a second as she saw a flicker of something cross her father’s face.

“-- and I wanted to know, what was her mother doing? What was the magic she was doing when the aurors came for her?”

Mr. Shacklebolt sighed, and settled himself heavily in a kitchen chair. He leaned forward, put his hands together.

“It was illegal magic--”

“Yes, I know, but--”

“I can’t really tell you the details, they were sealed, made confidential--” Mr. Shacklebolt grimaced.

“But,” Dorcas interjected, breathless with trying not to reveal too much. “Father, she’s missing--”

“The case is open now.” Mr. Shacklbolt shook his head again, this time sadly. “I’m sorry, love, there isn’t much I can say--”

“Father, I-- I just want to-- to get a better idea of what’s happening.”

Mr. Shacklebolt looked into his daughter’s dark brown eyes and softened.

“It was 1955. The Ministry detected illegal magic at an address in Bethnal Green--”

“What sort of magic?” Dorcas asked.

Mr. Shacklebolt sighed, rubbed his face with his large brown hand.

“Alchemy.”

“Alchemy’s not illegal.”

“No well, not most branches. Not more commonly practiced forms of Alchemy. Some are more rare, theoretical, risky. Listen, love, I can’t say anymore than that. It’s classified. I don’t want to know how you got this much information in the first place.”

“I--”

“Don’t tell me. Haven’t you got to get to work soon?”

“Yes, dad.” Dorcas sighed.

“Have a good day, love. And _be careful_.”

Dorcas pulled her head out of the floo fire and glanced back toward the staircase.

Dorcas pushed herself up off the hearth and went back upstairs slowly, weighed down by the pitiful amount of information her father had been able to give her. She glanced at an old grandfather clock on the landing, and saw that she had an hour before she had to be at the office. Instead of heading back to her room, she approached the bathroom at the end of the hall. Without thinking, she threw the door open, only to be taken aback-- Ligeia stood hunched over the sink.

“I-- I’m sorry,” Dorcas stuttered. She began to back out of the bathroom when she thought suddenly of Marlene. She paused to take a good look at Ligeia.

Her thick dark hair was mussed. Her face was red and puffy as if she’d been weeping. Her normally clear, liquid dark eyes were blood-shot, and her red mouth was open mid-sob, and wet. Dorcas felt an inexplicable rage well up in her.

“You have everything,” said Dorcas quietly. Ligeia grew still, and looked into Dorcas’s eyes through the mirror.

“You have everything, you have Cato, one of the most eligible pureblood bastards in the Wizarding World. You have the O.W.L.s, you’ll get the N.E.W.T.s, you’re a shoo-in for Head Girl, and you’re guaranteed a job in the Ministry. You’re beautiful, smart, wealthy. You’re perfect in every way. What could _possibly_ be the matter? Honestly.”

Ligeia scoffed, looking almost like her old self.

“You’re one to talk,” scowled Ligeia. “You just gad about, living your life the way you want, no one is coming to tell you it’s-- it’s--”

“What are you on about, Selwyn?” Dorcas snapped.

“You say I have everything, but you have-- you have--” Ligeia stuttered.

“ _What?_ ”

“You have _her_!” Ligeia cried, fresh tears falling.

Dorcas froze as if she’d been petrified. No response came to mind.

“You could never understand, never! What it’s like to-- to--” Ligeia stopped. She looked up with bloodshot eyes, burning into Dorcas. There was rage there, but also sadness. And a glimpse of something else. Envy. Desire.

“You could never understand what it’s like to be handed your life, neatly folded up for you, entirely designed,” said Ligeia quietly. “But the catch is-- the _catch_ is… you can live this beautiful life that everyone envies, that’s been planned for you since before you were born, but you can’t be yourself. You can’t have what you want, love who you love.”

“Why can’t you just give it up?” shrugged Dorcas, taken aback. “Why can’t you just turn away from it, go for what you want?”

“What, and lose everything? My family-- Slughorn chose me for this program because he’s friends with my dad. If my dad disowns me because he finds out I like--”

“Girls?” Dorcas interjected, a bitter half-joke.

“ _\--Because_ I decided to be myself, I’d lose everything. It’s different for me. I can’t be like you.”

“And what am I?” said Dorcas, rolling her eyes.

Ligeia paused, looking at Dorcas through the mirror, not blinking before she said, “Brave. Accepted. Loved.”

“Ligeia--” Dorcas breathed. 

Ligeia cast her eyes down again, tears on her black lashes. She was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. Dorcas wanted to say a thousand things. _You’re a callous bitch,_ she wanted to say. _But you deserve love, too. And I’m sorry, and it isn’t fair, and if I could convince you to get up right now, and pack your things, and get as far away from Cato and your family as you can, I would. I would do that for you. I’d carry you as far as you needed to go if it meant you could feel like you were free. But I can’t do that for you. I wish you had the strength to do it for yourself._

Dorcas felt her chest tighten, and she finally backed out of the bathroom, closing the door softly with a click. She stood there for a moment, still reeling from the shock. She took a deep breath, and walked back to her room, feeling she ought to be more unsteady on her feet. In her room, a very ordinary scene greeted her, jolting Dorcas ever-so-slowly back to herself.

Lily sat on her bed with a copy of the Prophet on her neat bedspread.

“Where were you this morning,” asked Dorcas. Lily ignored her. She poked the paper hard with her finger.

“Wilkes, that good-for-nothing wizard barrister, got yet another Death-eater off with a light sentence. A muggle-torturer. Wilkes argued he was under the Imperius curse. And guess what? Rumor is, Wilkes has been tapped as the next Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.” 

Dorcas looked away. “Disgusting,” she muttered in response. Lily fixed her with a steady gaze.

“How’s it going with Asante?” she asked. Dorcas sat down on her own messy bed and sighed, and began to unroll the increasingly complicated story of May Asante. Her mother escaping auror capture in Bethnal Green in 1955, her father’s presence on the scene, Dumbledore’s strange, cryptic words. _She will have no memories of the pain her mother caused her_ , he’d said. _This is not the last we’ve seen of her_. 

“He meant Oppenheimer, of course,” said Dorcas. “And I spoke to my father this morning. He couldn’t, or _wouldn’t_ tell me what ‘illegal magic’ meant, just that it referred to a rare, theoretical branch of alchemy.” Dorcas looked up finally at Lily, who looked more pale than usual, and grave.

“What is it,” asked Dorcas. 

“I might know what that meant,” said Lily.

Dorcas leaned forward, bewildered that Lily of all people would know, but desperate for a clue.

Lily sighed, studying the hardwood floor determinedly. 

“It’s said that there’s a branch of alchemical magic that can bring back the dead. It’s entirely theoretical, of course. I’m surprised someone would try it with a child.”

“What would you need a child for?” asked Dorcas breathlessly. Lily seemed to wince and began to pick at her quilt. 

“That sort of magic needs-- you can’t make something from nothing. If you try to get back something that’s been lost, you need to give something up.”

“You think that Asante tried that before, in 1955, and was stopped by the aurors?” Dorcas breathed.

“It’s possible,” answered Lily darkly.

“Dumbledore said she’d come back. Do you think that she’d try again?”

Lily looked up at the ceiling, looking lost and sad. 

“How-- do you know all this,” Dorcas asked haltingly. She was afraid of the answer, truth be told. Lily sighed deeply, closing her eyes, her face still turned toward the heavens. Her voice sounded strained with emotion.

“After my mum died… I was so bereft, I felt totally abandoned. My sister begged me to find-- to do _something,_ and I-- I would have tried anything. But not that.”

Dorcas and Lily sat in the silence, under the weight of this revelation for a moment, before Dorcas stood. 

“I better get going. Don’t want to be late to the office.”

Lily nodded mutely, and stood as well, going over to open her wardrobe. She seemed to be putting up a wall around herself, built of shame and grief. Dorcas reached out and put her hand on her shoulder. Lily startled and turned.

“You’re a good person, Lily Evans.”

Lily turned and blinked before taking hold of Dorcas’s hand and squeezing it. Lily looked away, but not before Dorcas noticed that Lily’s green eyes were wet.

* * *

Dorcas spent the morning in her cubicle in the Salt Mine, barely registering the files and forms that sat under her nose on her desk. Finally, as the clock struck twelve, Dorcas launched herself out of her chair and out the door. She sped along the Ministry corridors, tapped her foot impatiently in the lift, and tried very hard not to look at the other Ministry officials lingering outside their office doors. She finally reached the Atheneum, pulling open one of its massive doors and slipping in.

The Atheneum was quiet. It was quiet at all hours, but Dorcas felt the urge to tiptoe, to hold her breath here. She scanned the room and spotted Marlene’s blonde hair catching the light further down the hall. As Dorcas approached, she could see that Marlene was bent over stacks and stacks of records, searching through them for something. She seemed to have found it, separated it out, and began searching again. 

Dorcas suddenly, desperately wished she were anywhere else. _Do you know about Ligeia? Have you kissed her, did you fuck her, do you love her?_ Questions sped through her head at such a speed she felt slightly nauseous, questions she wanted answered, at the same time as she wanted to run away and never think about them, or Marlene, ever again.

Marlene looked up at Dorcas standing frozen on the rug a few yards away. She smiled, her mouth crooking at the side, forming a dimple in her cheek. Her lips were painted red, Dorcas liked that. Internally, she smacked her mental forehead with her mental hand. _Don’t be a dolt, Dorcas_. Dorcas smiled back, and went right up to her desk, clearing her throat.

“How are you, love,” asked Marlene, not looking at Dorcas, sifting through the records before her again. Dorcas glanced at them, they were Wizengamot case files, the huge, twisty _W_ encircled by leafy wreaths. Dorcas cleared her throat again.

“I’ve come to ask you something,” she said. Her voice came out stronger than she’d expected.

Marlene looked up, training blue eyes on Dorcas’s. Dorcas blinked, then looked away.

“About Ligeia,” she said softly. She sensed Marlene straightening, putting the records to one side.

“Did you-- Have you-- “ Dorcas stuttered. She tried very hard to quell the riotous nausea rocking her stomach. “Are you--”

Dorcas stopped to listen to a sudden rustling.

“What was that,” she whispered. But Marlene shrugged.

“It’s Crowley, the Head of Archives.”

A gray-haired witch with glasses perched on her prominent nose emerged slowly from behind the stacks. Dorcas turned to greet her, but stopped when she saw her face.

Crowley’s entire head emitted a faint light unlike anything Dorcas had ever seen before. The light was liquid, pale color ebbed and flowed over her contours in the dim Atheneum. Just visible under Crowley’s large-nosed, beady-eyed face was another face, a face Dorcas recognized from somewhere. Dark brown hair, now streaked silver, was visible under the glamour of gray hair. Her wide-open, wild eyes shone from underneath. She’d seen them before. As she searched her memory, the sound of heels in the hall grew louder. Dorcas turned to see Lily approach with stacks of Prophets.

“Hello Madame Crowley, these are for you,” said Lily, tipping the stack of newspapers into Crowley’s waiting arms. Lily quickly pulled a paper off the top as she did so, tossing it on the table between Dorcas and Marlene.

“Update on the Asante case--” said Lily excitedly. Dorcas turned to her suddenly and gave her a look, silently trying to tell her to shut up. Lily continued, having not noticed at all. 

“The Auror Office has dispatched investigation units. They’re looking for this symbol--” Lily held up the newspaper, which featured a huge illustration of the alchemical symbol on it, the same one from Asante’s office, a circle inside a square, inside a triangle, inside a circle. Dorcas swallowed. She glanced at Crowley, who had turned away from the table lamps, now looking wholly normal, no light, no color at all coming off her skin in the dimness. 

“One team to Knockturn Alley, one to Diagon Alley, and one to Hogsmeade,” said Lily. Dorcas snatched the Prophet off the table, ripping the front page away and folding it into her robe pocket at the same time that Crowley made an almost imperceptible movement before swiftly turning and walking away. Dorcas bent forward.

“They don’t have to search those places,” said Dorcas in a low voice.

“Why not,” said Lily. Marlene looked from Dorcas to Lily, utterly confused. 

“Because,” Dorcas whispered, “Because she’s right here. In this room.” 

Dorcas met Lily’s eyes just as they all three pulled out their wands, turning to gaze around the room.

Marlene cautiously called out, “Crowley?” 

“Crowley!” called Lily. 

Just then, an explosion threw Dorcas and Lily to one side, and Marlene to the other, raining books, burnt paper, smoke, dust, and wood splinters down on them. Dorcas found that all was quite dark for a moment-- her ears rang, her chest was tight, and she struggled to breathe. The dust settled slowly, and the room came back in dull shapes and pale light. Dorcas coughed and looked around. Beside her, Lily lay crumpled, her eyes just blinking back to the light, breathing hard, coughing at the smoke. Dorcas reached over, seeing her own black sleeve and brown hand bleached white by the dust. She took hold of Lily’s hand, causing her to gasp with pain. Dorcas released her immediately and sat up to look around. Lily reached for her wand a few feet away, inched herself up the wall, and grimaced with pain as she held her wrist to her chest. They took another look at each other.

“Just your wrist then?” Dorcas muttered. Lily nodded quickly. 

“I think so,” she gasped. “You’re bleeding.” She glanced up to Dorcas’s forehead. Dorcas swiped at it quickly, feeling a quick sting. Her dusty fingers came away wet with dark blood. 

“It’s nothing,” she said, her chest still tight. 

“Marlene,” she called. “Marlene!” Dorcas stumbled over the rubble. Behind her, she heard Lily cast a _Hominem Revelio_ spell. Dorcas’s heart seemed to stop as she pulled papers and pieces of wood off the crumpled form of an unconscious Marlene MacKinnon.

“Marlene,” Dorcas choked, reaching down to rouse her. But Marlene’s eyes remained closed. Dorcas blinked back tears, tried to slow her shallow, panicked breathing. Behind her, she heard Lily approach.

“She’s gone,” muttered Lily with a hint of bitterness. Dorcas whipped around with horror. Lily seemed to immediately realize her mistake.

“Crowley! Not Marlene,” said Lily quickly, looking apologetic. She bent to one knee, and gently placed her good hand under Marlene’s jaw. “Here, let me see.” 

“Marlene’s alive,” she said quickly. Dorcas nodded, desperately relieved. Dorcas attempted a _rennervate_ spell, but nothing happened. Marlene was still unconscious.

“Crowley was wearing a glamour. A simpler form of Disillusionment charm. She’s Trinity Oppenheimer, Asante’s mother,” Dorcas choked.

“We have to get to the aurors, we have to tell them we know who Crowley is,” said Lily delicately. Dorcas nodded again. She turned to Lily.

“Meet me-- meet me at the Leaky Cauldron in ten. I’ll make sure someone comes for Marlene.” 

Lily nodded and stood, stumbling out the door. Dorcas leaned over Marlene.

“ _Vermillious_ ,” said Dorcas, encircling the air above Marlene’s head. The red sparks formed a halo around her blonde hair, giving her an air of urgent sanctity that Dorcas found unexpectedly beautiful in the hideous ruin of the Archives.

With all the strength she could muster, Dorcas conjured her patronus, a lynx, which sputtered in and out of view as it frolicked in the air before her, leaving a wake of glittering blue light.

Dorcase reached out to her lynx, who approached, and they touched foreheads. Fighting back tears, Dorcas infused her lynx with a message.

“ _Marlene is in the Atheneum. She’s hurt. Crowley fled. Her real name is Trinity Oppenheimer, and we don’t know where she went. Find her._ ”

Dorcas pulled away and spoke in a quiet voice to her lynx.

“Go straight to Kingsley,” she said. Her lynx, still fading in and out of corporeality, bent her head once in response before disappearing in a flash of blue light.

Dorcas bent once more over Marlene and tearfully laid a kiss on her forehead. It took every last bit of strength that Dorcas had to leave Marlene in the ruined Atheneum.

* * *

Lunch hour at the Ministry was over. Dorcas didn’t meet a soul as she traversed the corridors on her way to the Atrium. She flooed back to the house, which was quiet as well, its occupants well-ensconced in their work at the Ministry. Dorcas flew up the stairs, opening the doors to every room, searching, hoping she’d run into someone. Finally at the top of the stairs, Dorcas found Alfred reading, sitting in a chair in the sun that spilled through his open window.

“Christ, what happened to you?” he gasped, tumbled from his chair, tossing his book to once side. He grabbed his wand and quickly began to siphon off the dust and blood.

“We can have a quick look in the cabinet, see if there’s first aid for you?” he said quickly.

“There’s no time,” Dorcas answered. She pushed Alfred back into his chair and launched into an explanation of how she’d found out about Crowley-- the pensieve, her father, the rare branch of alchemy rumored to bring back the dead, the investigation teams dispatched within London and to Hogsmeade, the glamour, the explosion. 

“Marlene’s just-- just there? In the rubble?”

“I sent a message to my brother to go get her. What else could I do?”

Alfred sighed.

“Look, Lily’s at the Leaky Cauldron. We have to act now. Come with me--” said Dorcas. Alfred cut her off with an incredulous look.

“What, you’re going to take Crowley on by yourself?”

“No, of course not! You and Lily are coming with me--” Dorcas rolled her eyes. She was impatient to get to the Leaky Cauldron. Just then, the door creaked open. Alfred and Dorcas whipped around to see Cassius’s head poking round.

“Do you two have any idea what’s going on at the Ministry? The aurors have all gone on mission, there’s no one in the office, so they sent me home early--”

“Come with us,” Dorcas said quickly. “Lily’s meeting me at the Leaky Cauldron. We’ve got to find a way to tell my brother that we know about Oppenheimer--”

“What? Asante’s mum?” said Cassius, moving into the room, dropping his bag on the floor. He looked from Dorcas to Alfred, who sat on the chair by the window looking skeptical.

“We don’t have time for this,” said Dorcas. She took the scrap of newspaper from the front of the Daily Prophet out of her pocket, which bore the illustration of the alchemical symbol-- a circle inside a square, inside a triangle, inside a circle. Alfred shot to his feet, recognizing it immediately. She looked at Cassius who fixed her with a hard, gold-eyed gaze.

“No, we don’t,” he agreed. They looked at Alfred, who seemed to feel overruled.

“Fine. But we’re finding an adult as soon as we can to tell them what’s going on--”

“Deal,” Dorcas agreed quickly. Cassius nodded his quick assent. The three of them charged down the stairs and into the fireplace with handfuls of floo powder, shouting “Leaky Cauldron!” They each in turn spun through the green firelight and into the pub on the other side.

* * *

The Leaky Cauldron was busier than usual. The culmination of the summer holidays had turned it into a hub for travelers, witches and wizards in regionally vibrant dress moved about, ordering tankards from the bar, soup brought out in great bowls to their tables, supper in trays delivered up the stairs to booked rooms. Dorcas, Cassius and Alfred landed in the pub in the midst of the bustling summer business. Dorcas spotted Lily in a corner booth right away. Just as she began to make her way through the crowd, Peter Pettigrew crossed her path in front of her, stopping her in her tracks.

“Pettigrew! What-- what are you doing here?” she said, taken aback. Peter grinned nonchalantly, unaware that anything was amiss.

“Alright, Shacklebolt! The boys and I,”-- he nodded to where James, Sirius, and Remus sat huddled together in a booth on the other side of the bar. “We get together--once a month-- for a-- for a--” Peter looked around. “for a do--”

“Right,” said Dorcas. She was distracted by her need to get to the corner booth. Peter’s prevaricating was the last thing she needed. Her fist tightened on the Daily Prophet front page still in her hand. The movement drew Peter’s eye, and his face lit up in recognition.

“Oh, I’ve seen that,” he said simply. Dorcas was surprised enough to give him her full attention.

“What?”

“I’ve seen that symbol. In Hogsmeade,” said Peter.

“What--” Alfred began. Cassius inched forward. Peter continued.

“Yeah, erm, at the fancy restaurant on the high road, what’s it called--”

“Le Petit Centaur?” Dorcas breathed, her eyebrows shooting up. She couldn’t believe her luck, stumbling into a clue of this magnitude.

“Yeah! Yeah, that’s the one. It’s carved into the stone, above the door.”

Dorcas tried very hard to catch her breath.

“Peter, you’re amazing--” she gasped, and she grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed his cheek before charging off to meet Lily in the end booth, followed closely by Alfred and Cassius. Sitting down, she laid the Daily Prophet front page in the middle of the table, smoothing it out.

“Got a tip just now from an unexpected source,” said Dorcas. Lily, nursing her wrist, leaned forward as Dorcas explained in a low voice.

“So we’re going to Hogsmeade,” said Lily.

“No!” Alfred exclaimed. “No, we’re going to find an adult and we’re going to tell them that they need to go to Hogsmeade!”

“All the aurors are probably already there,” said Cassius. “Like I said before, the office was empty.”

The four of them exchanged looks. Alfred looked exasperated. Dorcas swallowed. Cassius pointed at the symbol in the middle of the table and took a measured breath.

“Look, if we’re going to find an adult to tell them what’s going on, going to Hogsmeade is the quickest way to do that,” he said. “You can’t fit all this information into a Patronus message, even if we could perform that level of magic flawlessly, and we’re just not there yet. This is our next best option.”

“We’re going,” said Lily, looking determined, though slightly gray. Dorcas nodded, Cassius agreed. After a moment, Alfred muttered a reluctant “fine,” and they stood to go. 

As they approached the fire, Dorcas saw James Potter get up from his booth to catch up with Lily. Cassius and Alfred suddenly seem interested in the symbol on the front page of the Prophet, but Dorcas couldn’t help but overhear.

“What’s going on?” James asked in a voice frayed with worry.

“We might know where Asante is. We know where her mum is, anyway,” Lily responded quietly. She brought her wrist up to her chest where she held it tight. James looked amazed. “Wow,” he breathed, a little in awe, a little worried.

“Will you come with us,” Lily asked in a soft voice. James looked pained, glanced at his friends, and looked back at her. 

“My friends need me right now. Remus needs me, needs us.”

Lily nodded, seemed to understand something that went deeper than Dorcas knew.

“But look,” said James, his voice becoming almost too low to overhear. “Be careful, okay? What-- what happened to your wrist?”

“Crowley-- the Archive head-- Oppenheimer-- that is, Asante’s mum… it’s a long story,” Lily finished, reluctant to say anything more in the middle of a crowded bar.

“Say no more. If I can’t go with you this time, let me help you with this,” he said as he gently took Lily’s wrist and raised his wand. He waved it and muttered a spell. Lily inhaled sharply with pain as James made the small adjustment, and conjured a long, clean, white bandage that wrapped itself around her wrist.

“You need a glass of Skelegro and some rest, but I know you won’t stop until you’ve solved this mystery first.”

Lily looked up into his eyes, and James met them head-on. Their look seemed more than magnetic, drawing the two of them closer, their faces lit by the dancing firelight in the dim pub. It seemed to relay a thousand unsaid things, though they were entirely silent. After a few seconds, Lily turned away. 

“Good luck,” she said shortly. 

“See you on the other side, Evans.” He nodded and she returned the gesture as he made his way back to his booth.

Lily joined the group again, touching her bandaged wrist lightly.

“Let’s go,” she said, and they turned toward the fireplace.


	6. Magnum Opus

Dorcas, Lily, Alfred, and Cassius arrived in a rush of soot and embers, toppling onto a plush Turkish carpet in the dark, empty interior of Le Petit Centaur. 

It was huge. Light slanted down through the windows, spliced by the shutters drawn across them. The dim light snagged on the chandeliers and reflected off the surfaces of polished goblin-wrought silver, fine china, and priceless crystal. It caught the colored glass in the tall arched windows, spilling reds, greens, blues, and yellows onto the fine flagged stone floor. But the furniture was covered in white sheets, making beastly shapes in the dark, and the sconces and candelabras were empty. Darkness ebbed throughout the dining hall and further into the interior.

“Why’s it closed like this,” asked Alfred in a hushed voice.

“It shuts down in the summer,” said Dorcas. “Not enough traffic. Come on. We’ve got to find my brother.” 

Lily took her wand out of her pocket and started to cast _Hominem Revelio_ when Dorcas held out her hand to stop her.

“No,” said Dorcas. “If you cast that spell, we ourselves can be detected. Wouldn’t want the wrong person to know we’re here.”

“How do you suggest we find your brother,” asked Alfred nervously.

“Old-fashioned snooping,” Dorcas answered with a self-confident little shrug.

They all looked around as they passed quietly under the arches, peering behind every massive column, casting light from their wands into niches and narrow stairwells. High above them, gold-leafed mouldings glimmered menacingly in the dimness. Dorcas wasn’t sure, but she thought the cherubs on the walls were moving, flitting from cloud to cloud. Paintings on the walls and ceilings mimicked sunset skies, and sunlight shone down through the windows of a central cupola decorated with _trompe l’oeil_. 

Their footfalls echoed on the steps as they ascended the grand staircase. It led to a second floor, where tall french doors stood closed along the walls of the corridors that faced out into the hall.

“Let’s split up, said Lily.

“No, let’s stay together, said Alfred, horrified.

We split into pairs,” said Dorcas. “Lily, with me.”

Lily and Dorcas broke off from Cassius and Alfred, and the pairs made their way across opposite ends of the building. Dorcas and Lily bent at each keyhole to peer in.

“Ugh.” Lily’s noise of disgust echoed across the staircase. “Rich people have terrible taste.”

“Keep an eye out for Asante and Oppenheimer,” whispered Dorcas.

Every room was hideously splashed with baroque curves, lurid brocades, and gaudy gold leaf. Each one was filled with unnerving paintings of pureblood witches and wizards that peered down into the rooms.

“They really do have terrible taste,” muttered Dorcas.

Just then, a door that Lily had been listening at opened very quickly. Lily cried out as she was pulled by an invisible force into the room. The door shut just as Dorcas had spun around. 

“Hey!” Lily cried out on the other side of the door. “Open up!” Dorcas rushed to the door and pulled at the handle, but it wouldn’t budge.

On the other side of the hall, separated by the width of the staircase, doors opened up and swallowed Cassius and Alfred as well, snapping shut loudly just as Dorcas spun around. She was alone in the hall.

“ _Alohomora!_ ” she cried, aiming her wand at the door that had swallowed Lily. It didn’t open, and Lily continued to shout on the other side. The muffled voices of Alfred and Cassius trapped behind doors echoed across the vast, empty hall.

“It won’t work.”

Dorcas spun around at the unfamiliar voice.

The woman who had earlier been wearing Crowley’s face was now walking toward her. Her glamour had since been cast off; her hair, which had been disheveled when the aurors took her in 1955, was now smoothed down and held back. Her wild eyes were eerily calm, though they shone intensely in the dimness. Up close, Dorcas could see that they were light gray, almost silver. Her mouth was stretched taut in a triumphant sneer.

Dorcas swallowed.

“Oppenheimer,” she said in a low voice. Trinity Oppenheimer smiled.

“Very good,” she said. She glanced at the door behind which Lily continued to shout and pull at the door handle. 

“Your friends seem worried. Let’s fix that, shall we?”

Dorcas cried, “No!” Oppenheimer raised her wand, slicing it through the air, and Dorcas was frozen in her steps just as Lily fell silent on the other side of the wall. The hall was quiet, as Cassius and Alfred fell silent too.

“That’s better,” said Oppenheimer.

Dorcas breathed hard, trying to think fast. Her body and voice were frozen by whatever curse Oppenheimer had cast, so that even as her wand was in her pocket, it was also just out of reach. She realized that she was hearing Oppenheimer’s voice for the first time. It was serene, and smooth, full of light and air.

“Come,” she said, and she turned and walked back up the hall. Behind her, Dorcas rose into the air unbidden, a hideous puppet, her body in complete thrall to Oppenheimer.

She opened a pair of double doors at the front of the hall into a huge room. The curved surfaces gleamed gold, and carved ornaments undulated across the room. The cherubs from the hall flitted through the clouds, smiling cheekily in threatening collusion. The room was lit gloriously by a tremendous central chandelier, dripping with crystal, casting refracted light across the entire vast space, as large as a ballroom.

Oppenheimer walked to the center, where a body lay still, arms stretched out to each side like wings. Dorcas recognized her light brown skin, her dark brown curls fanned out beneath her.

“Professor,” she choked through the holding spell. Oppenheimer waved her hand-- wandless-- and Dorcas fell to the ground, gasping. She looked up. Oppenheimer had begun to walk around Asante’s body in a large circle, spreading a white powder on the ground.

Dorcas needed to think faster than this. What was Oppenheimer trying to do? What use would Asante’s body serve? How much time did Dorcas have? How might she help her friends from afar? Where was her brother? The only thing she could think to do was to buy time.

“It’s useless,” shouted Dorcas, gathering her strength to get up from the floor. “The magic you’re trying to do, no one’s ever managed it before.”

Oppenheimer paused. She turned to Dorcas, still holding whatever she was depositing on the floor around Asante’s body.

“My dear,” she said. Then she laughed, continuing her mysterious work. “The magic is secondary. I have a most magnificent vocation.”

Dorcas gasped as she attempted to put weight on her ankle. She’d hurt herself in the fall.

“And what’s that?” As if she wanted to know what this deranged woman thought her destiny was.

“To be the first witch in history to bring forth the dead.”

Dorcas put all her effort into snorting derisively. It elicited barely a glance from Oppenheimer. But-- she did hesitate for a moment.

“It’s not possible. No magic can reawaken the dead--”

“It is not a _reawakening_ , you _simpleton,_ ” snapped Oppenheimer, pausing in her work. She took a step toward Dorcas, who backed away haltingly.

“It is an entirely different matter,” Oppenheimer said in a low voice. “They took him from me. The soldiers. They murdered him in cold blood, left him there to bleed out in the street.” Her face took on shadows as she continued her work. 

“He was the only one who really knew me, who truly _understood_ me.” She paused to close her eyes and it seemed as if she would cry. She turned her face upwards, towards the light of the immense chandelier. 

“We were happy once, me, Ali, and May. We lived in a little cottage on a road outside the city, we had a baobab tree and a dog. Ali cared terribly for the people of his hometown, wizard and muggle alike. That’s why he fought for independence.”

Her wild eyes lit up fiercely. 

“The British troops had no right to murder him. That’s why I’m calling his soul forth. That’s why I’m sacrificing my daughter. I’m not resurrecting the dead, darling, it’s a wholly new _incarnation_ , if you will. A _transubstantiation._ A _metousiosis_. The transfer of a dead wizard’s consciousness into a new form, made from the flesh and blood of his flesh and blood. The closer the relation, the better--”

“That’s-- that’s-- ,” breathed Dorcas, utterly shocked that any witch or wizard would contemplate such magic, let alone explore the possibility of enacting it. Dorcas shook her head. She had an idea.

“My friend lost someone,” said Dorcas quietly. 

Oppenheimer returned to her work as if she’d heard nothing. The white substance she was laying down was a powder. It smelled strongly of sulfur, and it was beginning to take shape around Asante’s lifeless body. Dorcas studied it closely. She thought she could see the almost imperceptible movement of her chest rising and falling with breath. Asante was still alive.

“Her mum died last year,” said Dorcas, limping forward again. “She was a muggle--”

“The process does not work for muggles,” Oppenheimer frowned.

“She-- my friend-- couldn’t do the magic--”

“It’s far too advanced. Only a truly great wizard-- or witch-- would even attempt it.”

Dorcas used the movement of limping forward to hide the movement of reaching for her wand. She grasped it in her hand, feigning more pain than she actually felt. It wasn’t hard, really.

“Argh,” she gasped. “Where did you even learn how to do it--”

“From the greatest witches and wizards on the planet, you idiot,” Oppenheimer snarled. “From the greatest alchemists this world has ever seen. At Ouagadou, in the foothills of the mountains of Atlas, where the only stores of the world’s most precious Alchemical texts are kept. Ancient secrets--.”

“If they’re the greatest witches and wizards on the planet,” Dorcas huffed through the actual pain in her ankle. “Then what makes you think you’re capable of completing the greatest spell in alchemical history?”

“Shows how much you know,” growled Oppenheimer, pausing just before depositing the last of the white matter on the ground around Asante. It formed the shape of a symbol, _the_ symbol, the one that led Dorcas to that very place. “It isn’t a spell, you fool!” 

As she thrust her wand into the air, Dorcas thought of Lily, Alfred, and Cassius, and all her friends, alive and laughing in an end-booth at the Leaky Cauldron. “ _Expecto Patronum!_ ” she shouted, hoping that somewhere in Hogsmeade, aurors who were sweeping the village would see the patronus and come and find them.

“Argh!” cried Oppenheimer, responding with a blast of energy from her wand. It threw Dorcas back a few feet, knocking the wind out of her lungs-- pain erupted in her ankle-- and she threw an arm over her eyes as porcelain vases and crystal carafes exploded around her. Dorcas’s bright blue lynx sprinted around the room and charged through the wall, disappearing.

Oppenheimer smiled.

“It’s too late,” she murmured happily. She finished the circle that surrounded the symbol on the floor around Asante.

“After twenty years, the work I began after the war, with the special help of my daughter, interrupted by the aurors, by _Dumbledore_ \-- finally, my work, the Magnum Opus-- The _Great Work_ \-- is finished! The process of Transmutation completed over decades, my work-- _my work_ \-- complete!” Oppenheimer cried, laughing with pure joy. Dorcas grimaced with horror. Oppenheimer drew wide circles with her wand, casting spell after spell over the delineated ground. Webs of white light settled over Asante and the symbol, one after the other, covering them, infusing them. Dorcas could only watch in horror as the minutes went by, and Asante’s body and the white lines on the ground began to pulse with light in a steady rhythm. It truly seemed as if Oppenheimer would succeed and change the wizarding world forever. Dorcas began to lose hope that anyone would come for her and her friends after all. 

Just then, the french doors flew open. Kingsley, Lily, Alfred, and Cassius all came storming in. Dorcas’s friends ran to her side as Kingsley rushed to lob curse after curse at Oppenheimer, who parried and deflected every one, smashing more fine things all around them as their spells ricocheted. Alfred propped Dorcas up, Lily took hold of her hand, and Cassius glimpsed down at her ankle as Dorcas winced with pain.

“How did you--” she began to ask.

“It was brilliant,” Lily said. “Your brother, he--” But before she could finish, Kingsley sped over, kneeling down to speak to them, glancing with concern at Dorcas on the ground. 

“We have to get you lot out of here--” he began to say.

Just then, a blinding white light exploded from the center of the room, knocking the air out of everyone’s lungs, throwing them all to the floor, including Oppenheimer. Finely carved furniture splintered around them and the windows exploded in a shower of broken glass. China and glass crashed around them and silver vessels toppled to the ground. Several more bursts of energy followed, filling the room with blinding white light. Dorcas kept her eyes shut until finally she sensed beyond her eyelids that all was once again dark. She let her eyes open a fraction. Beside her, Kingsley stirred, Lily, Alfred, and Cassius roused, and she let herself look in Asante’s direction.

She was no longer lying prostrate on the floor. She was standing ramrod straight in the center of the room, her arms at her sides, her body emitting a blinding white light that was steadily fading with the seconds that passed. Her eyes were open and her gaze was like diamond-- it was adamantine with the force of decades of alchemical magic that dwelled within her. She seemed to resemble May Asante only superficially. It was clear, looking at her, that she was not the same witch she was before. She was like water that was too still.

“Did she do it,” whispered Lily with equal parts horror and hope in her voice. Dorcas looked around and couldn’t see any sign of Ali Asante, the man Oppenheimer had been trying to resurrect. Dorcas didn’t speak, afraid to break the silence that had fallen. 

Oppenheimer stirred from the place on the floor where she’d fallen. She began to sob loudly with joy. She ran to Asante with open arms, only to be stopped in her tracks by an invisible force when Asante held out a single, glowing hand. She crooked her fingers and Oppenheimer began to claw at her throat, choking in the invisible force that gripped her neck. She rose into the air. Asante followed her with her new diamond gaze. Dorcas and her friends looked on in silent horror.

“Did you think I would be grateful,” said Asante in voice hard with controlled anger. “Did you think that when Dumbledore _obliviated_ me, that the memories of your _experiments_ would simply fade away? That I would welcome you with open arms once you’d changed me?”

Oppenheimer’s wild eyes rolled up into her head. 

“Stop!” cried Dorcas. “You’ll kill her!” Kingsley threw a protective arm around her.

Oppenheimer fell ten feet to the ground. Asante turned her hard eyes on Dorcas, who shrank away. But when Oppenheimer scrambled to stand up, Asante rounded on her, raising her hands, and Oppenheimer was pushed once more to the ground.

“No! You will answer for your crimes,” said Asante, her voice still measured, still eerily calm.

Oppenheimer wept on the ground, crushed by the strength of the invisible pressure.

“I was a _child_ . You made me a _monster_.”

Lily screamed and Dorcas sobbed as Oppenheimer cried out with pain.

“I remember,” said Asante. “I remember every last thing you did to me. How you lied to me, how you filled my body with magic against my will, how you transformed me with alchemy before I was old enough to know what it meant. You scarred me, you branded me with your mark, with your grief, with your vengeance. You used me in a _failed_ attempt to get my father back.”

Oppenheimer panted, her face grotesquely contorted with the force pressing her to the ground. Kingsley let go of Dorcas and stood.

“For that is all you have done. You have _f_ _ailed_ . I was nothing more than a tool to you,” Asante continued. “And now that I know better, now that you’ve found me, and finished what you started, you will know the full extent of my new power, the power _you’ve_ unknowingly given me.”

“May!”

Asante paused to listen to Kingsley’s voice. He stood and fixed her with a steady gaze.

“May, listen,” he said slowly.

Asante stood stock still, her diamond gaze still trained on Oppenheimer, who was still pressed to the ground by the invisible force.

“What your mum did it’s-- it was, and it is, illegal. She has forfeit whatever right she had to call herself your mother. But destroying her won’t undo what she’s done, it won’t bring back your dad.”

Kingsley’s words were working. Asante’s arms slackened ever so slightly. Kingsley took a step toward her.

“Leave her to us, the aurors. We’ll make sure she pays for what she did to you. We’ll make sure she never does what she did to you to anyone else, ever again. But first, before you do that, you need to know something.”

Asante finally let her gaze shift from Oppenheimer to Kingsley’s pleading face. He took another step forward.

“If you’re here when the aurors come for you, they’ll take you in too. No one knows what you’re capable of yet, but it’s clear that you have power beyond anything the Wizarding World has ever seen. You’re a weapon and they’ll use you to fight their enemies. They’ll use you just like your mum did.”

Asante turned her whole body in Kingsley’s direction now.

“They won’t protect you. But I know someone who will.”

Asante let her whole body relax now. Her diamond gaze softened for a moment, and she was like Dorcas’s old professor again. Warm, easy, almost smiling. 

It was too late when Dorcas saw the shadow approach from behind.

“Professor, look out!” she cried as Oppenheimer threw her arms around Asante. Her eyes were wild as she brandished her wand and swung it in a stabbing motion into Asante’s stomach. Asante doubled over, and for a moment, Oppenheimer seemed to be a hideous pale hunchback attached to Asante’s small brown form.

A light was growing from the place where Oppenheimer had stabbed Asante. It grew brighter and brighter white until it was blinding again. Kingsley, Dorcas, Lily, Alfred, and Cassius threw their arms over their eyes, shielding themselves from the light as it grew.

Finally it seemed to reach capacity. It shrank very fast before Asante released a ring of searing hot energy that hit them, throwing them to the ground once more before another white-hot explosion followed, and a blood-curdling scream rent the air.

When the light had dissipated, Dorcas opened her eyes. She glanced at her brother, who was stirring similarly. She looked quickly for Lily, Alfred, and Cassius. All were alive and awake, before she dared to look back at Asante.

She looked fine now, though in shock. She was uninjured, and beyond that, she looked _normal_. As if nothing had happened. Her eyes were the same simple, warm brown that Dorcas recalled, her curls were a bit mussed, but otherwise, she appeared healthy, and she would have appeared calm, too, if her hands weren’t trembling. 

Before her lay the body of her mother, pale and lifeless in the smoky light from the blown-out windows. Asante raised her hands before her, not to perform some alchemical magic, but to look them over for some sign of the enormous power within them. Instead, they shook with the gravity of what she’d done. Asante raised her head and met Kingsley’s eyes, who rushed over to her. He threw his arm around her and brought her to standing, clasping her shoulders tight.

“You’ll be alright. Do you trust me?” he murmured. Asante looked up at him, and her eyes welled up. Within seconds, she became for one moment the lost and broken child that Dumbledore had taken under his arm in 1955. Kingsley nodded his head once and took her hands in his, even as the sound of footsteps echoed in the staircase below.

Kingsley reached for a chair that had tipped over in the blasts and dragged it toward him. He tapped it once and it glowed blue.

“Shacklebolt!” an auror cried out in the staircase just as Kingsley let go of her and Asante placed her hand on the chair. With a rush of air, she and the chair disappeared. The footsteps of aurors clattered as the Longbottoms, Moody and Crouch crashed in.

Kingsley stood and faced them. Lily helped Dorcas to her feet, and Cassius and Alfred gathered close to them.

“Shacklebolt,” Crouch barked. “What-- where’s Asante? Is that Oppenheimer there on the ground?”

“It is,” Kingsley confirmed. He stood straight-backed and a bit defiant, putting Crouch on his guard.

“Where’s Asante?” Crouch asked, growing suspicious.

“She fled,” Kingsley responded.

“And who are these children?” Crouch’s eyes narrowed.

“My sister and her school friends, they were worried about their teacher.”

“Well, how did they get here,” Crouch demanded.

“They’re very sneaky,” Kingsley let his mouth crook in a barely suppressed smile.

“I want them out of here,” Crouch snapped. “Have you assessed the scene, collected memories?”

“Already have, sir,” Kingsley said without missing a beat. Dorcas turned her head slowly to look at her brother lying so smoothly to his boss’s face. Crouch scrunched up his face.

“What?” he said.

Dorcas watched Kingsley take out his wand carefully, keeping it behind his back. He waved it in minute movements, while Crouch’s eyes slid out of focus. Dorcas said nothing, though she could feel her eyes widening before she could help it.

“I said, I already have, sir,” Kingsley repeated slowly.

Crouch relaxed his shoulders and his gaze turned to the light spilling through the glassless windows.

Captain Moody stepped forward and pulled Kingsley aside. 

“Did ye send Asante to _the Cloister_?” he asked in a short tone.

“The Hermitage,” Kingsley answered. “Its wards are fresher than the ones on the Cloister at the moment.”

Captain Moody nodded once with silent approval. He motioned for the Longbottoms to come over and sweep the scene for evidence. 

“We’ve only got a few minutes before Crouch comes round again,” said Captain Moody. “Longbottoms, collect what ye need to close the case, and stash anything that’ll raise questions. Kingsley, the weans need to go.”

Kingsley gave a short nod as the Longbottoms took out their wands and began to sweep the scene for evidence. Alice Longbottom produced a sheet from thin air and placed it over Oppenheimer’s body. Crouch swayed slightly on his feet, still staring dreamily up at the sky, steadily darking with the hour.

Kingsley put a hand on Dorcas’s shoulder and steered her limping out the door, with Lily, Alfred, and Cassius following behind. 

At the bottom of the stairs, in the cavernous dining room, Kingsley took out a small pouch of floo powder and pinched some between his fingers. 

“Alright, you lot, go back to the house. Wait for me there. Then we can talk a bit more freely.” He moved to throw the powder on the fire but Dorcas laid a hand on his arm to stay him.

“Marlene?” she asked quietly. Kingsley looked down at her, his dark brown eyes reading her whole face.

“She’ll be fine. She’s at St. Mungo’s.”

Dorcas set her face straight. She didn't want him to know how she felt to hear news of Marlene. She didn't want him to know what her heart was doing. He turned from her and threw the floo powder into the fire, which roared to green life, casting its light on their faces. Dorcas, Lily, Alfred, and Cassius went through without a word.


	7. Another Word for Fun

Dorcas tripped onto the hearth at Harrandon house, her ankle smarting with pain. Cassius followed her out of the fire, grabbing her by the elbow and helping her up. Lily rushed to take her other arm, and Alfred raced forward to the hall cupboard which sprang open as he approached. Lily and Cassius brought Dorcas to the table in the kitchen, where they sat her down gently. Alfred came in holding a bottle of Skelegro, and he poured a glass for Dorcas. 

“Can I have one too,” said Lily. “For my wrist.”

Alfred poured Lily a glass of Skelegro. They all sat down around the table. Dorcas tipped the glass to her lips and cringed with disgust at the taste. She set it back down on the table. She had been riding on the fear, the horror of the day, and high of the adventure, but she suddenly felt a wave of tiredness come over her.

Dorcas, Lily, Alfred and Cassius sat in the kitchen as the hour grew later. The light in the window turned from light gray to deep blue, and finally to the dark of night. Food appeared on plates-- turkey and potato, tomato and beans, bread, and butter, gravy and curry. Dorcas took small bites while Lily and Alfred shoveled large forkfuls hungrily. Cassius nervously glanced at the plates and turned away. Lily complained of nausea and stood to light a cigarette, opening the window casement to blow the smoke into the cool night air that spilled in from outside. Amin came and went, saying that everyone was at the Leaky Cauldron for a last drink before the end of the program. Dorcas felt a little sad to think of everyone in the pub, celebrating the end of their hard work, mourning slightly the impending end of summer and the return to school, to ordinary coursework set by ordinary teachers. She sighed, and downed the last of her Skelegro, her ankle more painful now than when she’d faced off against Oppenheimer.

* * *

Finally, near midnight, the quiet of the house was broken by the whoosh of fire in the fireplace and heavy footfalls on the hearth. Kingsley had arrived in the fire. Dorcas, Lily, Alfred, and Cassius turned to him with the same expectant expression. He entered the kitchen.

“What happened to--”

“Why did you--”

“Where’s Asant--”

“Kingsley, how did--”

Kingsley held up his hands and the kitchen fell silent. 

“One at a time,” he said, his deep bass voice rumbling. He looked at Dorcas.

“Alright,” he said, opening his over-robe and sitting down at the table. “Tell me everything.”

Dorcas shifted in her seat, bent forward to rub her ankle.

“Well, Lily and I were in the Archives where we saw--”

“Before that,” said Kingsley.

“Erm, well, Cassius and I--”

“Before that, Dorcas.”

Dorcas paused and cast a glance around the table at her friends, who looked sheepishly away.

“During the End of Term feast at school, me, Lily, Alfred, James, Sirius, Remus and Pete all went to her office and discovered she was gone. The furniture had all been upset. The only thing was-- there were hundreds of pieces of paper floating around, all printed with one symbol.”

Dorcas took the salt cellar and poured the contents on the table as her brother watched on with deep concern etched on his face. She moved the salt around, forming the shape of the symbol on the wood table. A circle within a square within a triangle within a circle. She continued to explain how she’d used her summer work placement in the Auror department to find out about Asante’s parents, how she’d seen the memory in the Evidence Pensieve, how she’d asked their father about the rare branch of alchemy that Oppenheimer had been using, how she’d happened to read about glamours in a book she took from the Auror Office reading room, how Marlene had helped her and Lily find out more information in the Ministry Archives, how Dorcas had recognized the glamour on the Head Archive Witch going by the name of Crowley, who was really Oppenheimer. Dorcas took a deep breath.

“Pete put us on to the clue of the symbol above the door to Le Petit Centaur,” said Dorcas.

“And after you arrived in the restaurant?” said Kingsley.

“We went looking for you,” said Dorcas. “We were intercepted by Oppenheimer. She’d removed her glamour, and she did something to trap Lily, Alfred and Cassius in rooms along the corridor.”

“I heard you, Dorcas, on the other side of the door,” said Lily, “after I got stuck on the other side. Then everything went black for a bit.”

“Yeah, we passed out, too,” said Alfred.

“Oppenheimer did something. I don’t know what spell she used to knock you out,” said Dorcas. 

“I felt like a train had hit me after,” said Alfred.

“Typical for a _coup de grâce_ spell,” said Kingsley automatically. “Continue.”

“An explosion woke me,” said Lily. “I got to my feet and started working on getting out. I tried a few different spells on the doors, but then I looked round the room. I looked under the furniture, felt along the walls, and finally, I found this little door.”

“So you found the house-elf passages, too?” said Cassius. Dorcas looked at him with not a little surprise.

“Do you come from a pureblood family, too,” said Kingsley. Cassius shook his head.

“My dad’s half-blood, but my mum’s pureblood, and some of her relatives live in this really old house, and it has passages like that,” he said. 

“A lot of old Wizarding houses do,” said Dorcas. Cassius nodded. Dorcas felt for a moment that the look he gave her was a bit odd, but she glanced at Kingsley, who was looking at Lily.

“Then what,” he asked her.

“Then I squeezed through the passage. I really didn’t fit, and I almost panicked in the dark when I thought I was stuck and lost, they’re like rabbit warrens. But I found myself in the kitchens below the dining room, which is where--”

“Me and Alfred found our way there too. We had a look out the window onto the street--”

“Where we saw your brother running toward the building, following this huge blue-white lynx--”

“My patronus worked then,” said Dorcas. 

“It did,” Kingsley confirmed.

“Yeah,” said Cassius. “What happened in there? Everything went so fast.”

“Oppenheimer turned Asante into-- something,” Dorcas hesitated. “Before you all arrived, I was alone with her, and Asante was lying on the ground.” Dorcas continued, explaining what Oppenheimer had told her, of her grief, her plan to bring back her husband’s consciousness, how she’d be the first witch in history to achieve what had up until then been only theory, how Dorcas had distracted her long enough to cast the patronus that would guide a nearby auror to her. Kingsley sat back in his chair, frowning and trying to work out Oppenheimer’s plans.

“So she had started the work of transfiguring-- transforming--”

“Transubstantiating,” Dorcas interjected.

“--Transubstantiating… the consciousness of her dead husband into the body of her daughter… when her daughter was a child.”

“Yes,” said Dorcas. She glanced at Lily, who had gone quiet and a bit pale.

“And it clearly didn’t work. Something else happened,” said Kingsley, still looking thoughtfully at the surface of the wood kitchen table.

“That’s right,” said Dorcas. “Whatever theory she was working off of, that’s all it was.” Dorcas watched Lily very subtly blink back a stray tear. 

“The magic changed Asante, gave her power beyond anything we’ve ever seen before,” said Kingsley, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anyone or anything do what she did today.”

Dorcas, tired, aching, shifted in her seat to stay focused.

“Kin, what you said back there, ‘ _They won't protect you. They'll use you._ ’ What did you mean by that,” she asked, troubled. Kingsley sighed and leaned forward.

“There's--” he stopped. “Well --” he paused again. 

“You lied to your boss. You confunded him,” said Dorcas. Kingsley frowned, ran a large brown hand over his crop of coily black hair.

“Who is _they_?” asked Dorcas. 

“Dork, you have to understand that the Auror Office has been playing defense for six years now. We’ve been on the backbroom, and Crouch wants us to get on the offensive. No more playing keeper, and he doesn’t even want us to focus on getting the quaffle through the hoops, he wants us to keep an eye out for the golden snitch. He’s got his eye out for a weapon, any weapon, that will not only change the game, but end it. Asante could be that weapon now, and I couldn’t risk her falling into the aurors’ hands, not after everything she’s been through.”

“So where’d you send her?”

“She’s in a safe house for now,” Kingsley said.

“An auror safe house?” Dorcas asked. Kingsley’s eyes shifted almost imperceptibly, then he smiled. He didn’t answer. He broke out into a grin.

“You did good today, Dork. _Despite_ breaking about a dozen laws, _and_ flouting Magical National Security, _you_ found her. You saved her.”

“I didn’t,” said Dorcas. “You did.” She hesitated. “You won't tell the Auror Office I broke the law, will you?”

“If you won't tell them I confunded my superior officer,” he murmured. He looked at her, smiled sadly. “You know, I'd really rather my sister didn't become an auror.” 

She smiled back. “Guess you and dad shouldn't have been aurors then either. Should've been bakers, or broom-makers. Because you know I would have followed you wherever you go.” “That's what I'm afraid of,” said Kingsley. 

As Dorcas looked at her brother, noticed the dark circles under his brown eyes, and the scuffs on his nice black shoes, she began to get the feeling that there was something more to this business of fighting bad guys and protecting muggles and muggleborns. She began to get the feeling that doing the right thing and being an auror might not always be the same thing. There was something under the surface to it all, and her brother knew what it was, and he wasn’t telling her. Her eyes flicked up to her brother's face. He was studying her intently. He seemed about to say something, when the sudden clatter of a glass of spilled Skelegro distracted them. Looking over, they saw that Lily had fallen asleep. Alfred’s eyes were drooping. Cassius, who was looking haggard himself, smiled slightly.

“Time for bed, I reckon,” he muttered. He stood, shook Alfred awake, and they slurred a sleepy “good night” as they made their way upstairs. 

“Can you walk,” Kingsley asked Dorcas. She nodded, and he bent to pick up Lily, whose dozing head lolled to the side. He carried her up the stairs behind Dorcas, and deposited her in her bed.

“Who gave you the Skelegro,” asked Kingsley as Dorcas eased herself onto her own bed.

“Alfred,” she sighed. She felt her eyelids grow heavy. She fought to keep them open.

“Smart bloke,” said Kingsley. “You two should be right as rain by morning.”

“What were you goin’ to say, bruv,” Dorcas mumbled sleepily. “Down in the kitchen.” She had to put her head down, it simply weighed too much.

“We’ll talk more later, little monster. Get some rest.” Kingsley bent at the side of Dorcas’s bed and smiled as she drifted off to sleep. 

* * *

  
  


The next few days passed far too quickly for Dorcas’s liking. There was the flurry of packing to go home. The ruckus and noise of James and Cato in the hallways arguing, Ligeia in the room next door alone, moving back and forth in the corridor, avoiding Dorcas’s eyes. Alfred and Amin and Cassius in the rooms upstairs, playing two-aside broomless quidditch over the banister with Cato’s suitcase.

Dorcas’s ankle was totally healed, and Dorcas walked around without a thought, as if she had never sprained it. Lily was gone in the morning and returned in the afternoon, tossing a copy of the Daily Prophet on top of Dorcas’s open suitcase which overflowed with wrinkled robes, socks and random bits of Auror Office forms and memos.

 _Decades-Old Cold Cauldron Solved: Illegal Magic In 1955 London At Last Attributed to Rogue Alchemist, Dead Aged 51_ , the headline read. Lily flipped it open, and pointed to a paragraph on page seven. Dorcas bent close to read.

_Junior Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt, who was present at the scene, has denied any link between the Cold Cauldron and the Hogwarts professor reported missing at the end of the previous term. “There is no evidence supporting such a theory at this time.” When asked if there was any truth to the rumor that four school-aged witches and wizards had been involved, possibly including his young sister, and that another, unknown witch had also been present at the scene, Junior Auror Shacklebolt answered, “No comment.”_

“That was a very close call,” Dorcas murmured. She looked up, and exchanged a look with Lily before Dorcas laid the paper aside and continued to pack. Lily opened her wardrobe and began to pull out robes and muggle clothes before turning to Dorcas.

“I don’t regret coming along,” she said. Dorcas turned to look at her again. Her wrist was no longer bandaged, her dark red hair was swept to one side, and she wore a plain robe over a t-shirt and jeans. Her face was determinedly set, her green eyes hard as stone. Dorcas lifted her chin, and smiled.

Before leaving for home that evening, Dorcas had one last thing to do. She pulled on a set of simple black robes, tucked her braids up on her head, and made to leave when Lily stopped her.

“Wait,” she said. “Here.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a little notebook. She opened to a page that was covered in flat, dry flowers. Some of their petals had browned and shriveled, while some had retained their color. Brilliant pops of blue and yellow hues. Lily waved her wand over them, making upward circling motions. The flowers came to life beautifully, deep blue irises, long, pearly strands of fragrant honeysuckle, and deep red carnations.

“Take these,” said Lily. She laid them in Dorcas’s arms. Dorcas had trouble finding words good enough to express her gratitude.

“Just go,” said Lily, pushing on Dorcas’s shoulder, directing her out the door.

In just a few minutes, Dorcas was walking through the corridors at St. Mungo’s, looking for the Janus Thickey Ward.

When she came to the door, she knocked softly, and entered nervously, looking for a familiar blonde head.

At the end of the ward, by a window that looked out onto the London rooftops that were splashed with late summer sun, Dorcas sat down in a chair next to the bed where Marlene MacKinnon smiled, her face brightening at the sight of Dorcas’s armful of flowers.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“How are you feeling,” asked Dorcas. She was a lot less nervous now that she could see Marlene smiling and talking. She was instantly calmed.

“Well enough, I reckon,” she shrugged. “Cannae greet, I’m awake and I’ve got all my fingers and toes, and I can’t say the same for the lad in the next bed.”

Dorcas chuckled and Marlene smiled. It was almost like before. Before the summer, before Ligeia, before Oppenheimer.

“I’m sorry,” said Dorcas. “This is all my fault.”

“Oh, hauld yer wheesht,” said Marlene softly. “It’s not your fault. It’s that woman’s, Crowley.”

“Oppenheimer,” Dorcas corrected automatically.

“Right,” said Marlene.

“Well, I also, erm,” Dorcas stuttered, suddenly a bit nervous. “Well, I believed for a bit that perhaps you and Ligeia-- I imagined--”

Dorcas laughed then looked over at Marlene, who had turned very red. The laughter died in Dorcas’s throat. There was a very awkward silence as Marlene touched her hand to her very red face.

“Dorcas--” she began softly.

Dorcas was confused. Did Marlene she knew fall unconscious in the Athenaeum and a different one woke up in a bed at St. Mungo’s? She had the same blonde hair, short fringe in the front that was tousled in the same way, long dark lashes that shadowed bright blue eyes, a little red mouth that crooked into a smile. Only now, it seemed Dorcas was looking at a completely different woman, one who would kiss someone who was not Dorcas.

“How, er, how long--” Dorcas mumbled, trying to make this make sense.

“It was once,” Marlene whispered. “Just once, one night, I’m sorry.”

Dorcas stood slowly. She tried not to look at the flowers whose petals were now scattering across the floor. She tried not to look at Marlene’s face crumpling with heartbreak. A spot on the freshly waxed floor was a good candidate.

“I don’t think I can do this,” Dorcas croaked. Words were hard, she noted, very difficult indeed. Her throat felt constricted.

“I never meant to hurt you,” Marlene said, her voice now thick with tears. “I made a mistake.”

“No, I think I’m the one who made the mistake,” Dorcas managed to whisper through her constricted throat. She felt that, as long as she wasn’t looking at Marlene or the flowers, she could get words out. “I let myself run away with my feelings. It was stupid, really.”

“Dorcas--” came Marlene’s own tearful reply before Dorcas cut her off.

“I hope you feel better soon,” she said, her eyes still focused on a spot on the waxed hospital floor. “See you at school.”

“Dorcas, no--”

But Dorcas was already walking briskly down through the ward, trying hard not to look anyone in the face. She couldn’t bear to have anyone in the hospital see the tears spilling down her face, or that her heart had been cleaved in two.

* * *

A few days later, Dorcas was sitting down to eat dinner with her family. The ceiling lamp above their heads spilled light onto a table laden with Dorcas’s favorites: great steaming ceramic tagines overflowing with lamb and squash, bowls of rice and couscous, curry chicken and boiled potatoes, roast mutton, syrupy fruit and fresh greens from the garden. Her family’s brown hands passed bowls and platters across the table: butter, gravy, sauce, and cream changed hands. The clatter of knives and forks joined the chatter.

“It’s been a quiet summer with you both gone,” said their father as he heaped vegetables onto his plate before passing the dish to his wife.

“Thank you, Lemuel, darling,” she said, spooning vegetables onto her own plate before setting the dish down. “How’s work been, Kin?”

“Oh, this and that. We’re currently busy with a muggle murder in Yorkshire. The muggle police say it was suicide, but it looks like the Killing Curse to us.”

“Terrible. And I expect some of the aurors are kicking up a bit of a fuss at the appointment of Wilkes as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. That Death-Eater defender, honestly,” said his wife.

“He’s skilled in Wizard law, Fatimah, and knows a great deal about Dark Magic,” said Lemuel. “Dumbledore hired him, he must have good reason. Now, as for talk among the aurors, I’ve heard rumors of a secret group causing a bit of a headache for the higher-ups.”

Kingsley coughed into his napkin and Dorcas reached over to pat him on the back.

“Are you excited about returning to Hogwarts for your final year, Dorky,” asked Fatimah.

“I am,” said Dorcas. She tried not to look at her brother, who would be able to tell in a second that she was lying through her teeth.

“I was so sad to leave Hogwarts,” said Lemuel. “You make sure to enjoy yourself, don’t spend the entire year studying.”

“Lemuel!” Fatimah exclaimed.

“I’ll try,” said Dorcas into her healthy helping of tahdig. She didn’t much feel like enjoying herself, or bumping into particular people back at school, but the crunch of scorched rice in her mouth made her feel momentarily better. Beyond the light of their family meal, the dark summer night pressed in, warm and humid and strung with the light of the last fireflies. The stars blinked in the sky over the hill on the Shacklebolt farm, the sphere of the sky ceaselessly turning, not stopping for any heartbroken teenager.

* * *

  
  


At Lily’s home in Cokeworth, on a dark-clouded August day, an owl swooped through the open kitchen window, upsetting the floral-embroidered curtains and landing on the formica kitchen table. Lily shut the window and took the envelope from its claw. Her father walked in from the front room, his slippers shuffling, an empty coffee mug in his hand. Lily looked up from the letter and held up what had fallen out of the envelope and clattered onto the table. Her father held out his hand and she deposited into his palm a red and gold Head Girl badge. Her father grinned broadly, rubbed the badge against his jumper to give it a shine and swung his arm around his daughter.

“You did good, Lilykins.” He kissed her on the top of her head and slipped the badge back into her palm. She looked down at it, studying how the light played on its metal curves. _Head Girl._ She couldn’t imagine how she’d been chosen to be Head Girl, she could only think of how often she’d gotten in trouble in the last year. How often she’d fought, and pushed, and struggled. She closed her fist over the badge. Her fingernails made little pink crescents in her white palm.

* * *

A few hundred miles away, in a large brick Georgian house covered in ivy and situated in the middle of a quiet, lush green park, James fingered a red and gold Head Boy badge before leaning over to show it to his mother. She gave him a pale smile before closing her eyes. James ran a sun-kissed hand over her graying black hair as she sunk further into the massive pillows of her wide four-poster. 

“How are you feeling, now, mum,” he asked in a hushed voice, adjusting the edges of her duvet, tucking her in.

“I’ll be fine in a few hours. I just need to rest, I think,” she said in a faint voice. James nodded and straightened. As he pocketed his new badge, and moved towards the door, a frail voice halted him.

“I’m proud of you, love.” James turned and gave his mother a bright, encouraging smile before opening the door and stepping out into the hall. His smile fell as he closed the door. For a moment, alone in the hall, he could let himself briefly feel the pain of knowing these would be some of the last days he’d be spending with his mother. 

James made his way along the corridor to a room on the other side of the house. Opening it, he found Sirius at the edge of the bed where Remus lay recovering from the previous week’s full moon. Peter stood from his perch on the windowsill, where he’d been watching storm clouds gather in the sky above the tall oaks in the park. James tossed his badge to Sirius who caught it and turned it over in his hand.

“Wonder who Head Girl is,” said Sirius. 

“Some frigid bird who studies too much, most like,” Peter joked. James gave him a look, then shook his head.

“We can’t let this get in the way of our fun this year,” said Sirius. James looked doubtful. 

“If it’s anything like Dumbledore’s decision to make me prefect two years ago, this is a ploy to keep us from getting into more trouble,” muttered Remus from among the pillows.

“Trouble’s just another word for fun,” said Sirius, holding the badge up to the light. James walked over to the window where Peter sat, and looked down to a converted shed several hundred yards from the house. Together, they watched as the shed door opened, and from it emerged Asante, her curly hair tied back, a teacup in her hand. She looked up into the sky to observe the oncoming storm.

* * *

In an apartment among a hundred other apartments on a council estate in Brixton, Alfred shook open copies of the Daily Prophet to show his mum the editorial work he’d done. She murmured her approval as he moved around the narrow kitchen to reach for a covered casserole dish fresh from the oven. His mother reached over and slapped his hand away.

“It’s not for you,” she said in her lilting island accent.

“Who’s it for then,” asked Alfred, unknowingly falling into the familiar rhythm of his mother’s speech patterns.

“For the Jacksons in the next building. Their daughter will come get it later this afternoon.”

“Why do the Jacksons get your casserole, but I don’t get your casserole?”

Mrs. Dean sucked her teeth before answering.

“Mr. Jackson had a fall. Yuh neva nyam from mawning?”

“I did eat this morning, but I’m hungry again.”

Mrs. Dean sucked her teeth again and shook open the Daily Prophet once more to have another look at her son’s bylines.

“The moving pictures are distracting,” she muttered. 

* * *

At the top of a sloping stretch of purple-heathered moor, a boy with golden hair and golden eyes ran out the door of a very old gray stone abbey. His knapsack bumped along as he ran, and the wind seemed to carry him-- flannel shirt, jeans, boots and all. Another boy, his identical twin, with golden hair and golden eyes, followed him out, and they ran down the sloping heath.

“Junius, Junius!” called the second boy.

“Go back! Cath's waiting,” yelled Junius as he stopped to call to his brother. At the bottom of the hill waited a young woman, her blonde curls snagging in the high winds coming off the moor. She hugged her light cloak and white robes close around her. Cassius sighed.

“Will you be back this weekend? Will you be back in time to pack for school?” Cassius asked, raising his voice so as to be heard above the wind. Junius didn’t answer, but waved in response, before turning to take his girlfriend’s hand. Cassius sighed as they apparated, the popping sound echoing down the moor. Cassius turned to climb back up the slope, toward his home, the gray-stoned abbey. In the window he caught sight of his mother, the curve of disapproval on her pursed lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, it was fun to write! Soon Dorcas Shacklebolt and Lily Evans will be back at school for their 1977-1978 school year, lots of hijinks, hormones, mystery, and murder! I hope you'll keep reading, and please rate and review! I'd love to hear from you!


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